


When the Road is as Dark as My Fears

by apokteino



Series: When [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Dark, Dark, Discussion of Rape, FBI, M/M, Rape Recovery, Suicidal Castiel, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 12:35:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4479440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apokteino/pseuds/apokteino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is just beginning to recover from what Dean has done to him when a case arises – and the FBI gets involved. Detailed warnings in end notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Road is as Dark as My Fears

Artificial light from outside – a shattered window high up the wall of the warehouse letting it in – taints the darkness below. The knife in Castiel's hand is warm to the touch, the blade catching and reflecting light as he moves it, examining the tip and the sharpness of the edge as he swipes it across his thumb lightly, a drop of blood welling up. He looks at the blood rolling down his finger for a moment, then brings his thumb to his mouth and sucks, bitterness on his tongue.

He puts the knife next to the flashlight, and wishes, not for the first time, that this building was still hooked up to electricity. A small generator hums nearby as he flicks it on, a few lights connected to it flickering before brightening fully. The darkness retreating, he can see now the sigils he had painted all over the floor and walls yesterday morning, devil traps above every entry, lines of salt beneath, and sigils of hiding evenly spaced around those. It would do them no good to be noticed, here, so Castiel has used those sigils along with some hex bags to make this place go by unseen, something to gently suggest people look elsewhere. It won't work against focused effort, but Dean considers that unlikely in this part of town. Particularly since the local homeless believe the place to be haunted, although there are no dead here.

_May you one day return home, brother._

Haniel's last words, after she came to tell them both that Sam was saved. He doesn't know if Dean even noticed, no doubt overwhelmed by the thought of Sam, but Castiel, oh, he had definitely noticed.

Such words imply an _after_ for him. Angels do not die the way humans do, lacking immortal souls, the cycle of life and death. Angels simply are, until they are not. Waiting for Raphael to arrive, more than two and a half years ago, Castiel had seen the end of his existence. 

Strange how things are now; the pulse of a borrowed – stolen – body the only link to life. A link easy to break. To cut. He looks at the knife.

He hears footsteps bound by a familiar cadence, and looks up. 

Dean gives a nod of acknowledgement, without meeting Castiel's gaze, and focuses his attention on the half-destroyed internal wall in the warehouse that has become their murder board. The pictures of six girls center it, with lines made of string connecting them to places and people, each place personal to the victim with it's history investigated and written. Dean had put this on the wall without discussing it with Castiel, and the methodology speaks more to Sam, or perhaps John, than Dean's guts-and-instinct style, but for this case … well.

Dean's obsessive-compulsive tendencies when it comes to hunting arose quite suddenly after Haniel's appearance, though Castiel can see no relation between the two. 

"Find anything?" Castiel finally asks. 

"No," Dean says shortly.

Castiel rises to his bare feet, walks silently to the board. Careful, still, to stay at least five feet away from Dean, far enough away to see and react to any movement. Any threat.

Dean edges away, as if he knows. Maybe he does. He's finally stopped looking at Castiel with a look of vacant surprise every morning, as if not expecting Castiel to be there.

"I want to go with you tomorrow," Castiel says. It is not out of any desire to be with Dean; he simply doesn't want to be stuck inside all day, going over information he's already gone over on the way here. And the bruises on his wrists have finally faded, it being weeks now since Haniel's visit, and Dean not touching Castiel once in the meantime, so he won't be conspicuous while out in the world. Not that Castiel trusts this lack of activity on Dean's part, exactly. The exact position of Dean's mind remains unknown to him. Perhaps Dean is convinced he is going to hell regardless, and his actions now do not matter. Or perhaps they do.

Dean lets out a heavy sigh and shifts. Castiel tenses, but doesn't move. 

Dean looks at him, takes a step back, and returns his attention to the board deliberately. "Okay. But I think we should take a look at what the reporters have got and haven't published – anything unsubstantiated. Talking to the vic's families was a waste of time, especially since they kept slamming their doors in my face."

"They didn't want to talk to you?" 

Dean shakes his head. "Too risky to be law enforcement with the FBI hanging around."

"Ah," is all Castiel can say. 

Dean abruptly shifts closer, for some unknown intent – going for the board, maybe – and Castiel stumbles backward in response, adrenaline briefly surging. Dean hesitates for a moment, jaw working, eyes angry, then stalks over to where Cas had deposited a bag of takeout. 

As if _Dean_ has the right to be angry.

Castiel lowers himself to his makeshift bed, shaking slightly. His wrists ache, shadows of pain, as he watches Dean.

Dean settles into his own bed, a mere ten feet away, that he had made the same time he'd done Castiel's. The short distance makes Castiel uncomfortable, but he has no idea of how to voice that thought. Instead, he wishes for the darkness – the ignorance of reality, the absence of memory.

Castiel has not had any blackouts for a number of days. It is unusual, and Castiel finds he misses the oblivion of those moments. But there has been nothing to trigger them, no violence or violation, nothing to remind him of the pain except Dean's silent, guilty presence. Not a word of remorse slips past Dean's lips. Only his actions speak, the silence and the distance, but he never strays too far from Castiel, nor for too long, as if he is pulled back again and again. It makes Castiel wonder what he's done, that Dean will not let him go.

Or maybe it's Castiel who won't let go. Won't leave, because he still loves Dean – and the rest needs him, lost in this world. Maybe this is partly his fault, this bizarre twist in their relationship. Maybe he stays because he sees the Dean of now, and this Dean seems able to be saved from the darkness he once inflicted. Maybe none of these things are real.

Castiel lays down to the sound of Dean quietly eating, squeezes his eyes shut, and wishes for the darkness to come back.

\------------------

The job of copying all notes went to Castiel, as Castiel would be utterly hapless at distracting anyone, an act Dean does with practiced ease. The room full of chatting, interacting and wandering reporters is full of noise, anything from the tapping of keyboards to loud arguments. Castiel keeps one hand on his phone, to take pictures of handwritten notes as needed, and another on a small device Dean called a thumb drive and carefully instructed Castiel in it's use, placing the device on the floor rather than physically hand it over in the warehouse.

He can still hear Dean talking faintly as he maneuvers over to the cubicle Dean had pointed out of the reporter in charge of the story. The computer isn't on, but there are pages of handwritten notes, so he looks up, to see if anyone has noticed him, and then takes a photo of each, as quickly as possible.

He almost stops by Dean on his way out, then remembers Dean specifically telling him not to do just that, so he continues outside and waits by the Impala.

Dean comes out, frowning. "Got it?"

Castiel nods wordlessly, and gets in the car. Dean gets in as well, and reaches over – 

Castiel stills, and Dean is apparently attuned enough to Castiel to notice, and it makes him freeze.

"The drive, please," Dean says finally, appearing vaguely annoyed, and holds his hand out, palm up.

Castiel hands him the phone instead, still shaking a bit, trying vainly to repress it. "It was all handwritten," he mutters, and looks out the window.

He hears a soft sigh, and then Dean turns the ignition and they go.

They don't park near the warehouse. The Impala is instead parked in alley two blocks away, covered similarly by hiding sigils. Dean doesn't like it, Castiel knows, but he was the one who made the decision to keep it far from their hideaway, so if things went badly the car would not be found. He made some vague comment about him and Sam having to go back for it before, then shut up and parked it there without waiting for Castiel's affirmation. Not an unusual occurrence, in Castiel's experience.

Dean goes through the notes without Castiel's help, muttering as he does it, cursing when he reaches the end. "Nothing," he says, and throws the phone down. He flops down on his sleeping bag, looking utterly frustrated.

"Research, then," Castiel quietly suggests.

"We already did that, Cas, and another girl went missing this morning," Dean snaps, eyes darkening.

"Look over everything, the whole history of the area," Castiel insists. It's their only option left. 

"We've got to get a look at the FBI's files," Dean decides, ignoring Castiel's words.

"You said –"

"I know what I fucking said!" 

"We'll get caught," Castiel argues, heart beginning to race, but he's determined to make his point of view known. He's not entirely sure what would happen if they were captured, but he knows Dean and Sam were paranoid enough about it to be extra careful. He also knows that they had been captured before, and something bad had happened. It is reason enough to avoid it in Castiel's mind.

"I'll do it," Dean says, definitively. "I've done shit like this before and gotten away clean. Relatively," he admits, rubbing his face.

"Dean –" A small part of him notices the desire for Castiel not to be in danger. But Dean can't be captured. He just … can't. 

Dean gets to his feet, anger falling across his face like a shadow, stalks a few feet away, then whirls around on Castiel, reaching down as Castiel shrinks away and grabbing the collar of his shirt, yanking Castiel halfway to his feet in one smooth action. "Why do you even fucking care? Are you that inhuman?" he snarls. His other hand forms a fist.

Fear races throughout him, and then Castiel fades out, grateful.

He's not naked and in some strange place when he wakes. He's where he was before, except sitting on the floor, knees brought up to his chest, arms limp, the back of his hands smudged with dirt from the ground. He looks up, and Dean is there, sitting silently and watching him. His face is blank, unreadable. 

Castiel licks his dry lips, a nervous habit he's been developing. He brings his hands up, wipes the dirt off. His body feels stiff, as if he's been still for some time.

"Would you like breakfast?" Castiel asks hesitantly, choosing to look away, and carefully makes it to his feet. He had gotten cereal along with takeout the night before, one of his fairly new excursions since Haniel, and cereal is an item he understands from a talk with a store employee to be a customary morning meal.

"Where do you go, when you blank out like that?" Dean asks instead. There's no anger in his voice now.

He pauses and looks at Dean, who just stares back.

"Nowhere," Castiel says at last. Nowhere, the welcome oblivion. He glances at the knife.

"Why are you looking at your knife?" Dean says instantly, and he is suddenly much closer, to his feet and approaching Castiel, who shivers but stands his ground.

"I'm not," Castiel lies, and wonders where he got the nerve to do so, even as he can't meet Dean's eyes anymore.

"Don’t lie to me," Dean says, voice intent, green eyes piercing even without direct eye contact.

"Don't," Castiel blurts, and Dean rears back, and he can see the surprise, which morphs into … sadness, he's fairly certain. Unfair, Castiel thinks. His reaction to Dean's words are entirely reasonable.

Dean hesitates, fingers twitching, then with one hand he reaches out, slowly, setting his hand on the curve of Castiel's elbow. Just holding, and he waits for a moment. "You're not thinking of hurting yourself, are you?" He pauses. "You shouldn't think that."

Castiel's mouth is dry. Dean knows perfectly well that he is, and why he's thinking it, but he doesn't really dare say that. He's been careful not to name the acts Dean has committed, not out loud. He decides he doesn't have the nerve to lie again, so he says nothing. He knows exactly where his thoughts were going yesterday, and it wasn't the first time he'd pondered that particular end to pain – though never very seriously – but it was the first with some kind of hope behind it. He was just … just thinking of home. He has, he has to remember that he has no way of knowing if he would die a true death or not, Haniel's words being indications, not certainty. And to die would be to leave Dean. After everything, all of this, could he truly leave Dean behind? 

No. "I'm not," he whispers finally, looking down.

"Good. Good. Sam once …" Dean stops. "Never mind." He dips his head to look Castiel in the eye, to force their gazes to meet. It reminds Castiel, powerfully, of that moment in the waiting room, where Dean had done the same thing and that intentness, that attention, had swayed him. Swayed him so far from what he had once been, swayed him into Dean's orbit, never to return, the utter power behind those green eyes then, and now.

Dean's hand on his elbow tightens slightly, and Castiel exhales.

Then Dean steps away. "We'll do it your way," he says quietly. "More research."

Castiel blinks, shocked, then nods.

\------------------

Six, now seven girls had disappeared over roughly a five-week period. The first abduction, twenty-year old Sherry, had been followed by another, a little more than a week later, then a third less than a week later. By small increments, the time between each disappearance had shortened. It was a typical pattern for serial killers, that when they finally begun killing – and there was little doubt in anyone's mind they were dead, even Dean and Castiel's – they couldn't stop, and with each kill became more practiced, more efficient. If the pattern holds true, Castiel knows, there probably won't be another disappearance before the next day, or maybe the day after that.

Still, he feels Dean's urgency. 

The only part of this series of disappearances that made it a hunter's concern was the fact that before three of the disappearances, the girls in question had reported cold spots and voices in their rooms. Dean saw that in one of the less fact-oriented newspapers in the area – this still being fairly local news – and had them driving there the next day.

But there's been nothing to find. Researching the girls had led them nowhere, no connections between them, no connections to any killer, living or dead.

By now, they both know the city's basic history. Started in the very late nineteenth century around a small mine, it had grown to just over a hundred and fifty thousand, with fifty thousand more living just outside it's boundaries in the boondocks. It used to have a center of industry, but when the recession hit that gradually faded away, leaving whole sections of the city abandoned. It has never been host to a serial killer before, from what they can tell. 

Castiel hears Dean mutter a curse, again, from where he sits, surrounded by old newspapers that had been digitized and then printed out from the library. Castiel has his own pile, more neatly organized. 

"I can't think anymore," Dean says, sighing. His eyes are dark with frustration.

Castiel says nothing.

Dean gives him an unreadable look next, then gets up and goes to his sleeping bag, laying down on his back, staring at the ceiling. He lays there several minutes, his soft breathing background noise to the facts floating in Castiel's mind as he scans the newspapers, a counter-balance that never lets Castiel stray too far from the here and now.

When Dean bolts up with a curse, Castiel starts. But it is just Dean, he reminds himself, though that fact is not an entire comfort. Dean does this when frustrated, when thinking.

Dean begins to pace, as Castiel feels an echo. It was this … it was like this, the first time. The first time Dean had raped him.

Maybe it's selfish to think about that now, with seven girls missing, probably dead. They have the hunt, after all. The thing Dean had always gone back to, when his family fell apart. When his family died. The mission to save others as they themselves could not be saved.

When Dean wanders near, casting unreadable glances, Castiel tenses up again. Dean seems to sense it, stops.

"Why didn't you stop me?" The words are quiet.

Castiel is incredulous, looking up at Dean. 

"You didn't even fight, after the first two times," Dean continues as if Castiel hadn't reacted. "You just took it. Did you … did you …" and he stumbles to a stop, not meeting Castiel's eyes.

What? Castiel doesn't know, so he looks away and wishes for this conversation to stop.

Then Dean is seizing his arm and dragging him to his feet. Fear heaves through him, but he doesn't black out, even as he meets Dean's furious gaze.

"Fight back! Dammit, Cas, did I really beat that out of you?"

"You _raped_ it out of me," Castiel snarls, the words pouring out without thought. "All the torture I endured on your behalf, when they pulled me out of Jimmy and reeducated me, when I died for you, again and again, and you did something worse than all of that!"

He hits Dean across the cheek with his fist, blinking and stumbling back once he's done it, Dean not losing his feet or his grip on Castiel – barely keeping hold – but not fighting back.

"You took something from me I didn't even know could be taken!" Castiel says, the terror fighting the rage. He tries to pulls away. "Stop it stop it _stop it_!"

Dean lets go of him, eyes wide.

Castiel's face is wet with tears, and he wipes them away with the palm of his hand, shaking. "When will you stop taking from me? Haven't I given you enough? My life, my existence, my body? You'll go on and I'll just be rotting flesh –" the words coming, coming, spilling out hoarsely beyond his control –

Dean says, "What?" Then, "You die, you go to heaven, Cas, God fucking resurrected you!"

"Then why am I not an angel?" Castiel smiles, but there's only pain behind it. He wonders how Dean could not have seen this undeniable truth. Humans, as Lucifer well knew, are God's favored creatures, and Castiel will not get the second life they do. He's already had too many, and those chances were for Sam and Dean's sake, not his. "I'll die here, Dean, and that will be the end."

Then Castiel laughs.

"It's not like they'd want me anyway, Dean. I'm … I'm sullied. By you, by this body. I'm – light made into nothing." Falling and falling, he is a flicker of time, soon to be gone.

"That's not true," Dean says.

"Isn't it?" Castiel replies, blankly. "It would certainly fit." 

He finds his sleeping bag, drops to his knees, the cold leaching in, the hardness of the ground spiking physical pain. The tears keep coming, ceaseless, this body's irresistible reaction to suffering. He thinks of Haniel, her words, and recognizes them now as comfort rather than reality. And maybe it's better, to have it all just end. Heaven is no heaven, not for angels, not for him. He's fallen too far.

He brings his knees up, wrapping his arms around them, body still shaking with half-released sobs. He shuts his eyes tight, focusing on the darkness; just like the blackouts, this is what awaits him, and he knows now he's already been yearning for it. 

There's the scuffle of feet moving, then Castiel feels the whisper of air, signaling Dean's closeness. Castiel jumps at the touch to his shoulder, but Dean doesn't move away. Instead, the touch transforms, hand slipping along his back, hand holding his other shoulder, and finally Castiel recognizes it as a half-embrace.

"I don't know much about heaven, Cas, or God. But he didn't give you life just so you could suffer more." Dean's breath is warm against Castiel's neck. 

And Castiel is simply tired, so he says nothing. The warmth of Dean's body feels good, as if he's finally realizing he's cold, and Dean is the answer. He turns and leans into Dean's body, his head tucked under Dean's chin, and even as he does it he feels Dean's surprised huff of air, then both of Dean's arms wrapping around him, hugging him tightly. It's bizarre to take such comfort from the man who abused him, but then nothing about Castiel and Dean has ever been very logical, so Castiel shuts the thought down and accepts the reality he's given.

"I can't let you go," Dean says, voice choked. "You're all I have left."

 _Then stop hurting me_ , Castiel thinks, but leaves it as a half-remembered thought. Dean is warm, so warm, that Castiel begins to relax. Dean takes all of his weight easily, Castiel pressed against his chest, Dean's heartbeat in Castiel's ear gradually slowing. Slowly, one hand starts to stroke his back, again and again, the repetition soothing. Dean is good at this, Castiel thinks dimly, even as his hitching breaths, sobs of air rather than tears, fall away. He lets his eyes drift shut, doesn't even twitch when Dean seems to settle, get more comfortable, and Castiel almost thinks he's going to release him when Dean's grip tightens again.

Castiel feels unspeakably tired, even though he has been up for only a few hours. He thinks about trying to move, do something, but it's without force. He drifts away, and this time the darkness is warm.

\------------------

By the time he wakes up, it's mid-afternoon; he can tell by the slant of light from the broken window.

He's also alone, curled up on his side on top of his sleeping bag. Dean is at his pile, ten feet away, but he's looking through a file folder, not the newspaper printings. His face is intent, a slight frown wrinkling his forehead, and he's biting on a pen that's wedged between his teeth. His eyes snap up after a second, then he takes the pen out of his mouth. His eyes narrow, but it looks more thoughtful than annoyed.

"Hey, Cas."

Cas blinks, his eyes feeling crummy from the tears. He tries to rub it out, then gets up to get a look at the folder.

It's an FBI file.

"Where did you get this?" Castiel asks, looking up.

Dean has a vaguely guilty look on his face. "Look, it's not like I walked into the police station and took it. One of the agents had it with him at the coffee place, and turned his back – I couldn't let the chance slip past us."

"You left?" 

Dean carefully returns his attention to the folder. "You were pretty out of it."

Castiel nods, even though Dean can't see him. "Anything new?"

"A bit," Dean says. "More in-depth stuff, more details about the families. I haven't been able to go over all of it with the research we've already done, so …"

"I'll help," Castiel offers quietly.

Dean clears his throat. "Thanks." And he hands over the part of the file he's already gone over. Castiel takes it and sits back on his sleeping bag to the rustle of paper.

Of course there's a pretense at normalcy. It even holds, for the most part, has been for weeks now, with only spots of irrational Dean arising. And last night … was … different.

It seems as if something has settled between them, but Castiel isn't sure it's real. Or perhaps 'lasting' is the better word. Comfort was offered and given, but only after another provocation, another suggestion by Dean that Castiel was at fault. He doesn't know if that's Dean's way of trying to justify it in his head, the agony placed upon agony he has caused in Castiel.

Perhaps he is trying to blame it on Castiel. Castiel can be blamed for many other things, for the events leading up to Sam dying – starting, he supposed, with letting Sam loose from the panic room – and he has suffered for those. Maybe he deserves to still suffer for those, but that's not what this was ever about. It was about Sam, about Dean going to hell, and Dean taking what slim chance he could of comfort in devolving into what he'd been in hell: a monster, a torturer.

Perhaps he should have left then, to stop Dean from heading in that direction.

His grip on the papers he holds tightens. It's not like Dean didn't know what he was doing was wrong. Sam had simply triggered the remorse, when Castiel himself could not. Perhaps it was always that way – Dean seeing himself through Sam's eyes, the only ones that ever mattered.

Maybe that will or has changed. He thinks of Dean holding him and how much that had mattered, and wonders.

"I'm going to go get dinner," Dean says.

Castiel nods without looking up. He hears Dean mutter, then sigh, the shift of papers. 

"I'll be back soon," Dean offers, when Castiel finally looks up. Dean's eyes are bright and open, and Castiel thinks he sees concern there, so he nods again, carefully meeting Dean's gaze.

Dean jerks his chin in acknowledgement, grabs his keys and goes.

Partway through the papers, Castiel realizes that Dean took part of the FBI file with him. Sighing, he goes back to the newspapers, thinking about the history of the victim's families. Something tells him the answer is here, somewhere, but he can't seem to pin it down. It flits almost into reach and then vanishes, out of his mind's sight. He rubs his forehead, then his cheeks, feeling the dried tear-tracks, the faint traces of crumminess in his eyes.

It's almost an hour later when he hears a noise, one that is not Dean returning. Castiel looks around, and finds Dean's phone, near his sleeping bag, has switched on. That would explain why Dean hasn't called, but not why he hasn't returned. Castiel hesitates, frowning, then gets up and goes to the phone. There's no message, nothing to indicate what made it light up. 

When nothing happens, he puts it down, and checks his own cell. He finds a short text from Dean about the file, from earlier, reads it and deletes it. He goes back to the newspaper printings again, eyes starting to ache. When they begin to water, he puts the printings down and rubs his eyes. He glances at the phone again – it's still on, puzzling – and he picks it up and studies it for a minute, then he hears the noise of someone – no, more than one – moving, and at almost the same time, he hears:

"FBI! FBI! Hands in the air!"

Castiel drops the phone, startled to see men in full gear coming towards him. He sees at least five, just from the one direction, rapidly advancing across the empty warehouse floor. They have guns pointed at him, and keep repeating those words, but every muscle in Castiel's body has seized. Fear races through him, but he doesn't black out, not this time. 

Where is Dean?

And then Castiel is being thrown to the ground by someone he can't see, arms twisted behind him, and he feels the sharp bite of handcuffs.

Cheek against the rough floor, Castiel closes his eyes.

\------------------

Castiel is led through a laborious process. It begins with a full body search, hands moving invasively over Castiel's body in the search for weapons. He recognizes it as necessary from their point of view, but every rough touch makes him flinch, even though the touches are entirely impersonal. He sees them already searching the warehouse as he's led out, people in suits looking at the murder board, then glancing back at him. Uniformed police officers lead him to a police car, where they put him in the back. Having informed him of being arrested, the trip itself is silent, and Castiel realizes they must be bringing him to a police station for questioning.

They ask him his name – he answers "Castiel" and they do not believe him when he tells them he has no last name – and make him press his fingers to what looks like a computer screen. Fingerprinting, maybe, as they make him roll the pads of his fingers across it, but he knows they will find nothing. (What seems like a lifetime ago, Sam had taken Castiel aside and told him to change Jimmy's fingerprints while Castiel was inside him, so the poor man could go back to his life when Castiel was done with him. Rather optimistic, Castiel had thought, even at the time.)

They put him a gray room, table nailed to the floor, three chairs. They calmly read him his rights, which Castiel dimly recognizes from television. He listens, but knows he will not refuse to speak. He replies he understands when they talk to him, signs something awkwardly when they ask. Keeping silent would be pointless, he believes, and he needs to know what they know – needs to understand the situation he is in. 

Do they have Dean?

The room is empty, save for himself. He tests the cuffs they put on him; they're tight. There's a mirror on one side of the room, which seems vaguely familiar, but he can't place it, so he finds that he looks at himself, instead. His hair is sticking up in random tufts, he has dark circles under his eyes, and his skin looks pale and sallow. He looks ill, like Sam or Dean would after catching a sickness. 

Dean.

He finds it is the top question in his mind. If they have Dean, _if_ they have Dean, then they are truly trapped. The police, the courts, the law – he knows his knowledge of such is lacking, missing whole pieces. Such is the case with most things, this surface-level understanding of the human world that provides so little. So unimportant, once. He shivers, cold.

He's left alone for what seems like hours. Clearly, they want to talk to him, yet they wait. He finds the silence, the time passing, leaves him unnerved and anxious, and guesses this is the reason why.

Eventually, he hears a commotion outside the door – raised voices – then a tall man with gray specked hair walks into the room. Castiel recognizes him from the warehouse. He wears a dress shirt without a jacket, sleeves rolled up, and has narrowed, angry eyes. 

He doesn't sit. Instead, he stares right into Castiel's eyes for a moment, then he walks right to Castiel, puts on hand on the table, and leans close. "It doesn't matter where you go," he says, voice low and intent. "What state prison you end up in. If you don't hand over your partner – who we know very well is Dean Winchester – I personally guarantee you will have a short life." 

They don't have Dean. Dean is still free. Something within Castiel subtly relaxes.

The man looks at him harder, closer. "I guarantee that you will be bending over the rest of that short life, taking it up the ass from your fellow inmates, if you don't tell me where those seven girls are right now."

"I don't know where they are," Castiel says, meeting his eyes, trying to ignore his words, but the images spring up in his mind anyway. He feels the rapid thud of his heart, as it's been doing on and off since being captured, but this time the cause is a more specific fear.

The man cocks his head, his hand on the table slowly clenching into a fist. "You think we didn't see your 'murder board'? How carefully you've investigated your partner's victims? We know you did this."

"We didn't kill them," Castiel insists, words shaking along an exhalation of breath.

The man's breath is warm. "That's a fucking lie," he says softly. 

Castiel takes in shallow breaths, as he hears the door open, someone else talking: "Detective, you need – leave right now …"

"I'll make sure you're raped every day in prison," the man snarls, and Castiel doesn't know how he's found Castiel's weakest point so easily, and then the man pounds his hand into the table, making Castiel jump. Castiel sees another hand wrap around that wrist, shadow of his figure fading, someone else in the room.

Castiel is breathing fast, and all he hears is that word: rape, rape, rape. He believes it; the word is utterly real, the threat real. The awful, horrible violation. A betrayal when done by Dean, punishment for a crime not committed, and now again, here, again, oh please God no, others? Prison, four walls, pinned to the ground, wings broken, unable to leave. He would be physically helpless, not mentally helpless as he is with Dean; there would be no escape, rape, again and again, nothing but the blackness, the soothing dark –

He fades out to the blurred shape of someone approaching.

His eyes blink open. He is staring at his wrists, in his lap, no longer cuffed, though there are thin red lines encircling them, as if he'd pulled at the cuffs, hard. He spreads his fingers experimentally, but there's no pain.

He glances up to find one of the chairs opposite him filled. There's a woman in a suit, vaguely familiar, dark hair and eyes, hands resting casually on the table. She's perhaps thirty, thirty-five, and has an air of confidence Castiel wishes he was feeling himself. She's watching him, and unlike the man, there's no hostility there.

"You here with me now?" she says, dipping her head to meet his lowered gaze, eerily familiar of something. She raises her head when he raises his.

"I apologize for earlier, it won't happen again," she continues. "Detective Marshall wasn't supposed to speak with you. He feels very strongly about this case."

"I could tell," Castiel mutters.

She cocks her head, smiles a bit. "I'm Agent Burrows, with the FBI. We were brought in to profile the person who took those now seven young women. The last, Janet, we believe may still be alive. Since you consented to being interviewed, I have some questions to ask you." She folds her hands. 

"I didn't kill them, and neither did Dean," Castiel says evenly.

Burrows doesn't hesitate. "I find your usage of that word interesting. Are you saying that Janet is dead?"

Castiel blinks. "I don't know. But the others … as long as they have been missing, they are likely dead."

"She's only eighteen, Janet," Burrows says conversationally. "She spent months figuring out which college she was going to go to, and is only weeks from going there. She just started packing the day before she disappeared."

"Dean and I are not involved," Castiel informs her again.

"Yet, here you are, clearly following our investigation, doing your own on the victims."

"Does your investigation differ from ours?" Castiel inquires politely.

"Is that an attempt to find out what we know about you and your partner?" Burrows asks pleasantly. 

"If our investigations are the same, shouldn't our goal also be the same?"

"You claim that you and Winchester are trying to find the 'true' suspect?" Burrows has an incredulous look on her face.

"That has always been the case. I know Dean has had contact with law enforcement before, and since I know Dean, I know what he said to you." Then Castiel waits.

Burrows studies him. "We're quite familiar with Dean, yes. His particular characteristics go across some categories – he's a possibly delusional mission-oriented killer who claims to fight … what is it? Ghosts and demons?"

"Something like that," Castiel says, remembering how little most of the human world knows of the supernatural one.

Burrows nods slowly. "So .. Dean is a hero."

Castiel just looks at her.

She leans forward. "And what about you? You're still something of a mystery, as your fingerprints didn't show up in any database, you didn't give a last name." She trails off, leading.

"I … don’t matter."

"Everyone matters, Castiel. You. Dean, and those girls. Sherry, Andrea, Jessica, Sydney, Jennifer, Melissa, Janet."

Castiel does not respond for a long moment. He knows those names, of course. "Is there something Dean and I missed in the investigation?"

Burrows cocks her head slightly, and he sees it in her eyes: the recognition of vulnerability. "I watched you, earlier, and when you retreated for a moment from us in this room. You were unaware of what was going on, weren't you? You can't remember?"

"I don't know what you mean," Castiel says, and even as it comes out he knows it's weak.

"Sounds like a defensive mechanism. Something we call dissociative amnesia," she says slowly, attentive. "It happens when the trauma of something is so great the mind has to repress it to survive. Is that what happens to you, Castiel?"

He hadn't thought there was a name for his blackouts, a category. They just … are. "I don't know," he says quietly, unsettled and the thought coming out before he can stop it.

"I'm going to take a wild guess," Burrows says, eyes downward, "that Dean is the one who made your mind … break." She flicks her gaze upward, intent.

Castiel can't deny it. So he says nothing, glancing away and feeling himself tense.

"Do you kill with him, Castiel?"

"Dean isn't a killer, and neither am I," Castiel snaps.

"Or are you," her lips part, but she says nothing until he meets her eyes, "another victim?"

"I stay with Dean of my own free will," and ironic, that he has that which has caused so much trouble for humanity – and heaven. He feels himself trapped in this body, this oft-hated body, small, his self barely large enough to touch skin.

"We know what Dean is, Castiel. The evidence he's left behind at countless locations proves his guilt beyond a doubt. You – you are the question. What did he tell you Janet was, that she deserved to be kidnapped?"

"He didn't take her," Castiel manages to say smoothly. Dean has done many things likely worthy of law enforcement's attention, but Castiel finds it both strange and amusing he's being persecuted for something he didn't do.

"But he has done other things, hasn't he?"

"Dean is a good man," Castiel says slowly. Dean, after all, saves people. Most of them.

"A good man who has hurt you?"

Castiel folds his arms, shivering, but meets her gaze defiantly. "What makes you think that?" and it comes out defensively.

"The way you react," she says, "the way you flinch from simple contact. These are all signs of someone who's been badly hurt. Often."

"I'm fine." He pushes his emotions down ruthlessly.

"I see. You don't seem like a killer to me, Castiel." She's studying him. Then, "You're traumatized. And when Detective Marshall said those things to you … you had a powerful reaction to the suggestion of rape."

Castiel blinks, looks away. 

"Dean raped you."

The statement falls upon Castiel like a heavy weight pressing on his breath. It's the first time he's heard another say it. Say that word, and Dean, and Castiel wants out of this room right now.

"Did he use that to control you?"

"No," Castiel says almost inaudibly. Dean hadn't needed to, not the way Castiel had been so dependent on him – the rape, that was just cruelty for cruelty's sake, at least in the beginning. Dean's changing behavior later on means something else, but that doesn't in any way negate what had already been done. A sliver of revulsion works through him, and then he represses it, thinks of something else, harmless blue skies.

"There's no shame in what happened to you," she says, and her voice is calmly melodic. "I don't doubt you fought back when he abused you, at least at first. Eventually, you adapted to your surroundings. You adapted to his abuse. I can't even guess for how long he hurt you before you became dependent on him, because he was your only place in the world. Because he had cut you off from anyone who could help you."

Castiel shakes his head. No, Dean hadn't isolated him. The war between heaven and hell had done that – to both of them. "You don't understand," he whispers.

"I do understand," she says. "This cycle of abuse happens to others. Some of them – and you can be one – get out."

Castiel says nothing, just wraps his arms around himself tighter. She doesn't know – she doesn't. Heaven and hell, the apocalypse, these are all abstract concepts to her. She doesn't know what happened to Dean; what happened to Castiel. The fall, and after.

"Then help me understand," Burrows says finally. 

"You won't," Castiel answers, and it's nothing but the truth.

"Castiel," she says with an almost-absent sigh.

"Why should I tell you anything?" Castiel demands, rubbing his wrists. "All you want is for me to confess, to tell where those girls are, and I can't do either of those things. Dean isn't guilty of this, and I don't know where the girls were taken."

"However this ends, Castiel, what you say, what you _tell_ me, matters. When we catch Dean – and I assure you that we will – your motive, your intent is how we judge your culpability. If you are innocent? Then say so."

"And helping you understand Dean and myself would do that?"

"I don't know that for certain. I hope, at least, to clear you," she replies. "But can it hurt?"

 _Hurt me_ , Castiel thinks. 

"Help me understand," she repeats. "Help me understand why he's worth this, when he has hurt you as he has."

"He's Dean," Castiel says uselessly.

"That's no answer, and I think you know that." She takes a moment, leans back. "You agreed to talk to us for a reason, Castiel. And I think that reason is you _want_ to talk. You've been alone with Dean for a long time, haven't you?"

Yes. He has. "That's irrelevant."

"I don't think it is," she says quietly. "What has he done to you?"

Castiel lets out a sudden breath, a hitch of air. 

"How did you meet Dean?" she asks softly.

He feels himself start to remember, to trace the threads back to the beginning, to want to share, to make the words truth as they come out of his mouth. To make her understand … that it's Dean. And it's never been rational.

Castiel takes a breath, shaky as the one before, and knows his words will make little sense. "He was covered in the filth of hell when I met him, that first time, and he still shone so brightly. My memory from then is perfect, and I'd never seen a human soul that pure, even in all that evil. I knew he was righteous, and I gripped him tight and pulled him out. I saved him, you understand?" And he says the words to himself. "And he deserved to be saved."

"What he was doing, when you met him?" Burrows asks. "What is 'the filth of hell'?"

"Exactly what I said," Castiel replies. "In hell there is only torture, victim or inflictor, until madness destroys the soul."

"You saw him commit crimes, evil acts, and still believed him worthy of salvation?"

"Yes," he says, and is certain she would understand had she been there, seen the essence of Dean, not the physical body which hid so much. 

"How?" It seems an honest question, as she looks at him, clearly not understanding.

"He broke. He broke after years of torture, and accepted torturing others as the only way to stop the pain. I – I can't say I blame him for that."

Burrows just looks at him, waiting.

"And I thought … I thought he had a mission," Castiel says, uncertain of what words to say, how to explain, how to give life now to the reality of then. "A purpose that I had saved him for. But it wasn't one given by God, I found that out. By then it hardly mattered, I had to do as I was told." He stops, remembering being seized from Jimmy's body, the furious lashing of his brothers' anger.

"Did you?"

"For a time," Castiel says. "Dean … Dean convinced me to come with him."

"Why?"

"I liked him," Castiel says, shrugging. His brothers and sisters hadn't liked that; they'd seen the weakness, recognized it for what it was when Castiel himself didn't. "He made so much sense. I was drawn to him."

"People like Dean are often very charming," she says, but it's like a reassurance of his actions, instead of a questioning.

"I was too late, though," Castiel says, the words pulled from him. Too late in everything, but especially in this. Too late to stop Lucifer from rising, and that was the moment Sam was lost. "I didn't save Sam."

"Sam, Dean's brother?" she asks. "Is he involved in this?"

Castiel shakes his head. "Sam is dead."

"We thought the same of Dean, once," she says, a note of skepticism in her voice.

Castiel looks at her, doesn't answer. He's not familiar with current human death rites, of how that sort of thing is kept in record. It was never relevant. "He's in heaven."

She nods. "So how did you end up traveling with Dean?" she says, dropping it. Perhaps – probably – because she already believes Sam to be dead. Because if Sam were alive, he'd be with Dean, and there was only the traces of the two of them in that warehouse.

"I fell," he whispers. "I died and I fell."

"Died from your old life?"

It's not entirely inaccurate. "Yes."

"Do you want that life again?"

"It's gone, too," Castiel says. He's seemingly human now, after all, without grace. An abomination to his own kind, neither one thing nor the other.

"Maybe you can't have life as it was before Dean, Castiel, but you can have life after. A true life, not following Dean Winchester around as he kills." There's a moment of quiet. "I understand, Castiel. But you're not alone. I can help you, I want you to understand that – not just know it, but feel it. Other people have been horribly abused, and survived, even thrived."

"You don't understand," Castiel says, and there's sudden anger burning. "There is no purpose for me except Dean. He's literally the reason I still exist, whatever else he's done to me." And maybe he wants that existence gone, but that's the only acceptable separation, really. To be without thought, or Dean. One or the other. Castiel loves Dean too much for it to be anything else. _You're all I have left_. But that's not exactly true, is it? Because Sam will be waiting. If Dean goes there.

"You don't exist to serve Dean, Castiel."

Besides the point. "I can't give you what you want – Dean is not guilty of this."

Burrows looks down at the folder. "Did he restrain you when he raped you? Hit you? Tie you up so you couldn't fight back?" Her voice is even, melodious, twisting it's way into his head. Softness and understanding turned to iron.

"Dean didn't kill those seven girls," Castiel says, and tries to shut down the memories brought back to life by those words. She's manipulating him and he knows it, and part of him wants to black out again, find the oblivion and escape. But he doesn't.

"He tried to kill you," Burrows answers, dark eyes looking up, seeming to find something in Castiel's face, because she continues, "not the literal sense. But he tried to destroy what you are through violence. I entirely believe, just based on that, that he is capable of what we believe he's done."

Nothing more than what he learned in hell. "Dean." And he can't get the rest out. Her words turn the scabs – built by weeks of distance and silence, the stop of the abuse – into gashes of searing pain. "I love him."

"Can love really exist in the midst of that much pain? I see so much of that pain inside of you, Castiel."

Of course she does. It spills over, outside of Castiel, into the darkness. Cas loves Dean, but all he can feel right now is the hurt. It still hurts, hurts as much as it did when the wounds were first inflicted, the first time Dean stripped him and turned him over, the last time Castiel faded away and woke to the knowledge of _again_. 

"You won't be held responsible for anything else you've done while with him," Burrows presses, apparently seeing the weakness. "You were his permanent victim, his plaything. How long did it take you to do anything he said? To just want to please him so he wouldn't hurt you? That's not criminal intent. You weren't in your right mind."

He stares at her. "I'm not crazy." He drops the gaze. "And Dean isn't a killer."

Her voice is sad when she speaks. "Dean isn't going to stop, Castiel. People like him – they don't stop hurting people. They get worse, the violence escalates and escalates. You can't save him; there's nothing there to be saved." 

Castiel takes in a sharp breath. That's the crux of it, he supposes. Some need in him to see the old Dean, to want the old Dean, the Dean that's returning, that held him while he slept. Real, not real – he doesn't know. The Dean since Haniel had been so different. So familiar. Can he be saved?

And he must remember: Dean didn't kill those girls, whatever other crimes he's committed.

"Leave him," she says.

Castiel shakes his head.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Burrows hesitate. Then she raises a hand, tucks her shoulder-length hair behind her ear. "Castiel."

He looks at her, slowly.

"You love him, don't you?"

Yes. Of course.

"He doesn't love you back, Castiel," she says. "He isn't capable of the emotion. He's a killer, and everything he does is in pursuit of his own goals, his own wants. He can be seemingly kind because that manipulation serves to bring you closer to him."

After a moment of silence, pressing, Castiel says, "Dean can love."

"But he doesn't love you," and she makes the question seem like a fact. 

He doesn't know, not for certain. He remembers Dean's words, _I can't let you go, you're all I have left_ , and wonders if that his role, to be the secondary thing, the consolation prize in Sam's shadow.

"You don't hurt people you love, Castiel." 

The truth of it burns his throat, choking on the words that want to spill out, denials, and doesn't that just prove how much energy Castiel has spent trying to excuse Dean's actions?

"He meant to do everything he did, Castiel. He wouldn't have raped you if he didn't intend to hurt you." She leans forward, slightly, warm and sympathetic. "I can help you. I can help you heal, help you move past what Dean is, what he's made you do, help you live a normal life. A happy one."

It seems – it seems so rational, hearing her words. They don't think he's the killer, they think he's another victim of Dean Winchester, kidnapper and murderer. In some sense, that is true, but also the truth is that they are victims of each other. Letting Sam loose, too high to recognize the manipulations. Acting too late for Dean to stop him. Dean, then, had been his victim; and then Dean had returned the favor. Except Dean had heaped hurt upon hurt even after Castiel's wasteful attempts at redemption. God wasn't there. Castiel wasn't strong enough to stop Michael, to stop Lucifer. Only Sam's love for his brother was strong enough for that.

Only, he supposes, is his love strong enough to stay with Dean, to not hurt him by leaving; Dean's hadn't been that strong. 

But he'd known that even then, when Dean had made him swerve from his course, that the emotion that ultimately made him fall was imperfectly reflected in the person who was the cause. 

Does it really change anything? He still loves Dean, stupidly and hopelessly.

"I don't believe you're guilty of Dean's crimes, Castiel," Burrows says. "Prove that. Help us, or just walk away from him when we do take him in."

Castiel looks up.

"We have prior history on Dean and his crimes, but not on you. There's no evidence, and I don't believe we'll find any, connecting you to these crimes, save for the fact of where you were found."

"What are you saying?"

"You're free," Burrows says. "You didn't do this. I know that. You're not capable of abducting and killing girls. You would empathize with them too much for that."

Once, he may have been able - for the right reason. For the cause. But now he knows pain, as he didn't then.

"I saw you react to their names," Burrows continued. "I know what Dean has done to you. Beatings, repeated rape – you're another victim of Dean, hurt so long you can't see the way out. But it's here, Castiel. Walk away."

"I don't know where Dean is," Castiel says, closing his eyes. 

"I think you have a good idea, even if you're not certain," she replies, tranquil as ever. "You know him well enough to know how he thinks, the actions he'll take."

"I can't betray him like that," Castiel whispers. Dean is innocent. Dean is innocent of this.

Castiel shakes his head.

"Castiel," she says. Her eyes are open, understanding. He looks down at the table. "There is an entire world out there, waiting." 

Silence. She's looking at him, and then she reaches out a hand, palm up. 

"You don't need to be afraid," she says softly. "He won't be able to hurt you anymore. And there are good people out there who can help you recover, doctors who understand what he's done to you. You're linked to Dean by the trauma, Castiel. He was all you had, so you had to love him, had to depend on him, and that's not the case anymore." A moment passes. "You're saved, Castiel."

"Saved?" Castiel chokes on a cry, repressing it ruthlessly. Castiel isn't the one who needs to be saved. He sees Dean, lost, in his mind. Out there, somewhere, waiting to be captured. He doesn't believe Burrows is lying when she says they'll find him. And then … then Dean goes to prison, and that's the end. Finality. Dean sits and waits to go to one place or the other. 

But if Dean is free – then …

"Castiel, where is Dean?"

Castiel doesn't answer. 

"Castiel."

No reply, and he says nothing again and again, silence, to every question. His mind turns restlessly, but he doesn't speak. He glares at her questions even as he feels the pain burn, his heartbeat fast. Pain and pain, and Dean. _Dean, how could you do this to me?_

Finally, she rises, goes around the desk and lays one hand on his shoulder, the touch light and barely felt. "Think on what I've said, Castiel. You can walk away."

And she goes, and Castiel sits in silence.

\------------------

They give Castiel food, a sandwich and a soda. He's not particularly hungry, but he opens the wrapping and takes a bite anyway.

It's dry in his mouth. He eats half of it, then sets it down, the soda still full. He leans back in his chair, looks at the mirror. He can place it now; the mirror is see-through, and he's being studied by people he can't see. 

He closes his eyes, rubs his face, then his arm drops. The pain-driven adrenaline of earlier is slowly fading, leaving exhaustion and worry.

He wonders where Dean is. What he's doing. Is he continuing with the hunt, looking for the ghost who took those girls, or is he running? Is he coming after Castiel? That possibility is a strong one, he knows – Dean doesn't leave people behind, that was never his style. _I can't let you go._ That is something the FBI agents hunting him no doubt fail to understand, because it fails to link with Dean being a serial killer. They think him to be without conscience, when Castiel knows full well that Dean more of a conscience than most. 

Dean's guilt might as well be a third person, sitting in the room with them, it's presence influencing every word, every movement, a watching thing that never let up, never lets the secrets they share slide.

The fact that that guilt had failed to rise until Sam's fate was known didn't change the fact of it. Nor did it change the fact that, even believing Sam to be in hell, Dean had continued hunting – saving others, as he is trying to do here, justice for those seven. No, Burrows is wrong. There is something to be saved in Dean. Even hell had failed to burn that out of him, and he'd known it looking at Dean's soul in the darkness of hell, the chill of a true death, dying away from the past, Dean's soul hadn't forgotten itself.

Some part of Castiel hopes Dean doesn't come for him, fearing Dean being caught. If Dean was wary enough not to use his fake FBI credentials – which Castiel had seen him use more than once – then the authorities must be too close, too dangerous to attract the attention of. Perhaps that was how they had found Castiel, through the stolen folder taken by chance opportunity.

He sighs, looks around the empty room. He's been left alone for a while, he doesn't know how long. Her last words to him still echo in his head, however much he tries to repress them, and he resolves to be stronger this time, to not be drawn into talking. That way leads only to more pain; he doesn't want to think. He wants Dean, he wants to be gone from here, and he wants those things with a desperation he's rarely felt.

He opens his eyes at the sound of the door.

Agent Burrow walks in. She sits opposite him, as before, gives him a gentle smile, then reaches for the closed folder she'd left in the room. She opens it silently, and it's a police report, with pictures of a few dead bodies. 

"St. Louis," she says. 

He says nothing, confused.

"That's when we really became aware of Dean Winchester," she continues after a moment. "When he started taking the place of his victim's loved ones, then brutally murdering their families and loved ones." She takes out the photos, spreads them before him. The people in them are unnaturally pale, spattered with brownish blood. 

He looks at them, then at her.

"This is the person you're protecting, Castiel." Her eyes are – stronger now, he thinks. More pressing, more demanding. "I can hardly imagine what he's doing Janet right now, if this was his degree of violence then."

"Dean is innocent of this," Castiel answers, meeting her gaze.

Her answering look is full of sadness and determination. She breaks it to go into the folder again, and she takes out photos, but this time, they're all family photos. The seven disappeared girls, laughing with family, at parties, Christmas time, blowing out candles. "Where are they?" she asks softly.

"I don't know," Castiel says, and knows it isn't heard.

It goes on this way for a while, Castiel can't say how long. She tells him everything about the victims, from their own lives, to their parents, or their children's lives. She tells them about their hopes and dreams, about the pervasive sense of loss left behind for the survivors' to suffer. It upsets him, makes him breathe fast, but he understands what she's doing – making him realize they are people, making them real so he'll tell her what she wants to know. But none of that changes Dean's innocence, and so he says nothing. 

Again and again, nothing.

"Castiel –"

And there's a sharp knock on the door. She stops, surprised, then rises with a frown to answer it. A man in a suit leans over to her, says something Castiel can't make out, casting little more than a glance at Castiel.

She turns, eyebrows raised, and looks at Castiel. "Dean Winchester just turned himself in."

\------------------

Dean knows what happened as soon as he sees the lights and sirens. He stops dead, fingers holding onto the takeout bag going numb, falling back onto the heels of his feet, and stares.

The warehouse is surrounded by at least ten police cars, and unmarked police cars with lights flashing silently from the dashboard. FBI agents, marked by their suits, wander around with the uniformed police officers. The area has been cordoned off, with a few people at the police tape talking and attempting to get a good look on what's going on. 

Dean's hand snakes into his jeans for his cell – and finds nothing.

Fuck. He left it. 

Fuck. He left _Castiel_.

He takes a deep breath, and turns around, walking back to where he left the car as calmly and slowly as possible, even as his heart races. Dean has been gone for hours, since he went to track down what turned out to be a useless lead before grabbing dinner, so it's almost completely dark now. Street lamps are lighting the way, and it's hard to resist the urge to run. Not in fear for himself, but for Cas, because he knows without a doubt that they have him.

Cas wouldn't have left, not knowing when Dean would be back, and Dean left his cell, and _shit_. They would explain how they had found the place. He hadn't seen any security cameras when he snatched the folder from the unwary FBI agent, but that doesn't mean there weren't any. And if they'd traced every cell in there – Dean had texted Castiel a message, they could track that – it would explain how they had tracked this place down. That was the only they could have.

He made a careless mistake and now Cas is going to pay the price. All that time, being more careful, not using the FBI identification, making the murder board – being more careful so Cas would be safer, and then _this_.

Dean runs his hand through his hair, trying to think. He has to break Cas out, that much is obvious. Exactly how he's going to do that … 

Cas would be surrounded by FBI agents constantly. He would be kept in the police station, the place Dean hadn't dared go before all this. Now? Now they would be on the lookout out for Dean, especially if they'd connected him to Dean Winchester of St. Louis, Dean Winchester who supposedly died with his brother in a helicopter explosion a year plus later. If his face isn't out there yet, it will be soon.

And Cas. After everything he'd done, after everything Cas had been through, he doesn't deserve this, doesn't deserve spending the rest of his life in prison for crimes he didn't commit.

There are a lot of crimes Cas hadn't committed, and paid the price for already.

It takes him some minutes to reach the Impala, and he pauses when he reaches her, settling his hands on the hood, fingers smudging the shine. His fists clench, unclench, as a mess of fear and pain mingle in his head. He's free, and Cas isn't. 

He gets in the car, puts his hands on the steering wheel. 

He could wait, wait for another girl to disappear, to make it clear Cas isn't involved in the kidnappings. He could turn himself in, wait for another girl to disappear, and make it clear he probably has another accomplice, not clearing himself or Cas at all. He could continue the hunt, solve it, and move on, leaving Cas behind. Which, well, _hell_ no.

He's had guilt like a heavy weight in his gut since finding out Sam is in heaven. Not that it didn't exist before, not that he didn’t curse himself every time he hurt Cas after those first few, but he'd tried to ignore it by taking out his guilt and anger on Cas, by grasping for something not given willingly. Will he ever stop fucking up and fucking other people over?

His hands on the steering wheel tighten, knuckles white. He has to do right by Cas, but he has to do right by those girls, too. If he doesn't solve this case, no one will. He has a backup cell, but no hunters to call for help; all the ones he could trust are dead. Even the means to contact other hunters is gone, gone with Ellen and Jo.

Dean squeezes his eyes shut, feeling them burn, feeling the panic in his chest burn.

The detailed papers and newspaper printings were all left in the warehouse. It's too late to go to the library and try to redo them, since it will be closed soon if it hasn't already. All he has is what they left in the Impala – part of the FBI file and newspaper printings that they hadn't gone through yet because of how old they were. All he can hope for is that the answer is in there, somewhere. He doesn't have the time to find it anywhere else. The longer he stays, the more likely the FBI will catch up with him. The more likely the case doesn't get solved and Cas doesn't get saved.

He takes a deep breath, lets go of the steering wheel, and grabs the printings from the back of the car. 

He goes through them carefully, even when his eyes sting with tiredness. It's dark outside, so the flashlight provides the only light, casting shadows in the car. Days and weeks and months of nothing pass before him, all the scandals and storms and happy news stories that make up a newspaper, blurring into one continuous line of nothing important.

Hardly an hour has passed, and nothing. An hour with Cas is custody. An hour with Cas probably terrified, being threatened with prison and worse. 

He wants, desperately, to throw the papers to the ground. To just be able to go out there and do something.

Instead, he tries to think of those girls. But as his eyes drift shut, he can't.

Every time he closes this eyes, he sees it: that first time, holding Cas down, feeling how helpless Cas was, and how hard that made him. How trapped in the rightness of Cas's body, he'd felt in control, finally.

Then he sees the terror and pain in those blue eyes, and his own eyes snap open, adrenaline surging.

"Cas," he whispers.

The girls. He has to think of the girls. 

Terrified, hurt, probably dead. 

Well, Cas isn't dead, at least. He laughs harshly, and the sound pierces the silence, weird and abnormal.

He takes the sheets of paper with shaking hands, and starts looking again. Searching violent crimes for familiar names, familiar names anywhere. Anything in the past that could connect seven different families. 

He doesn't know how long it's been when he finds it. 

It's a backnote kind of a story, one that would never make the front page. A school dance, East Crest High, and a young sophomore who was humiliated in public by the graduating class. And in a picture, nine girls who probably never knew other besides for this moment – him, with his pants down, them, laughing, just a section of the crowd and all different ages, who happened to have their pictures taken, those _nine_ girls – and he recognized two of the names. The names they had before they were married. 

The FBI probably didn't think anything of it. Seven girls whose mothers went to the same highschool at different ages? Could be seen as a coincidence, because they all lived in the same area as adults. They hadn't moved on, but stayed in the same city. Not much of a surprise they had certain connections.

Dean doesn't doubt they'd looked it up and found out the sophomore in question, David Searn, is dead, and then thought nothing of it. Because what could the dead do, after all?

He lets out a unsteady breath. Cas had been right, that the answer had been here all along, in the newspaper printings. The FBI file had told him the maiden names of the mothers, and now it all clicked. Dean would bet anything those girls were in the gymnasium of that school, or somewhere nearby. It's the only think that makes sense. He takes note of the school's address, then scrambles for the local map he'd bought coming into town, and traces the roads until he finds the school.

He takes his keys and turns the car on, the rumble familiar and comforting.

The streets are nearly empty as he drives, random pockets of cars here and there, red lights glaring in the dark, and he goes at least five miles under the speed limit the whole time. The school, when he finds it, is locked down and abandoned. Chain link fence surrounds it, chains and locks holding openings shut, some areas of the fence twisted or cut back. He parks, gets the shotgun with some salt in a canister, a knife, and the salt rounds, just in case.

It takes some wandering through halls littered with paper and wild animal shit to find the gymnasium where the dance had taken place. 

In the center, there are seven silent, still forms, lined up and facing east, bare feet peeking out.

He approaches, knowing they are dead. A closer look confirms it, some with their blank eyes open and unseeing, the first few giving a stench, pale and bloated. Dean has seen bodies in every state of decomposition, so there's not much surprise or disgust there. But he also sees marks on their wrists and ankles, as if they'd been tied up. 

Those marks are familiar to Dean. He's certainly made enough of them, on a certain pair of wrists. And he would catch Cas rubbing them, later, after the bruises had faded. It made him wonder if they still hurt, if he'd damaged Cas's hands permanently.

Damaged Cas permanently, maybe. He steps away from the bodies, noting other bruises. He's done this, almost as bad as this. Cas still flinches away from his touch, and who can blame him?

Dean has never even said he's sorry. 

He takes another breath, backing away further from the body. "Apologies never did anyone any good," Dean mutters, jaw clenched, the words breaking the silence, making him twitch.

There's no trace of the ghost here. It is as if they'd been dropped here without being dragged, no marks of anyone save himself ever being here. 

Dean has his confirmation on his target. Now he just needs to find the bastard's grave.

He steps away from the bodies, starts heading for the car, heedless of the dust scattering and rising after his footsteps.

He reaches the car and is flipping open the detailed map in minutes, small flashlight held in his mouth as he finds a pen and starts circling all the cemeteries he can find. One, two, three. He finds five, goes over the map again, and finds one more. He traces the streets to find out the fastest way to get there, and then puts the map down.

Cas has been in police custody for almost three hours, and only God knows what they've put him through in trying to get answers, answers that will never come.

Dean knows very well how fragile Cas is. How fragile he has revealed himself to be, when Dean pushed him. How fragile he has become, because of Dean. Those first times, when Cas had fought him, and Dean had been able to make him submit, it was all about control, about making Cas hurt, Cas who represented heaven, Cas who represented the angels, Cas the object. By the time Dean realized Castiel was having blackouts, he had just wanted … just wanted comfort, the way touching Cas made him feel, the way Cas was warm and alive. It seemed easier to just take it, seemed easier to just keep going and not think about what it all meant – what the blackouts meant, what Dean was actually doing. 

Raping his best friend.

He never uses the word, not even in his own head. Punishment or comfort, but never the truth, not until Haniel stood there, and all the careful reasoning in his own head fell apart, the reasoning that it was all pointless, that none of it mattered, that there was no justice.

There is justice, he knows. Dean knows where he's going, and he's glad his brother isn't there. Justice, that Sam isn't, and Dean will be, alone. 

But he's not alone now. Cas doesn't leave; won't leave. Even when Dean pushes and pushes him, when Dean tries to get him to fight back, he doesn't. Dean tries to convince himself that Cas could fight back, that maybe Cas had wanted it in some way, but that is just denial, selfish denial, and he can't repress the truth.

The control was part of it in the beginning, but only part. Hurting an angel – what better way to be sure of going to hell? All he could think of was the pain, the lack of control over his own fate. That and Sam, finding Sam, being with Sam – and for that he'd thrown away the chance to ever be with Sam, and thrown away Castiel as well, the only person to ever matter as much as Sam did. 

Anything he does for Cas now does not count for him, cannot balance the scales; he's tipped them too badly, all the sins, too many sins. He wonders what hook is in him, that he pulls people to himself, only to destroy them. What twist in his soul has made Cas think better of Dean than he actually is.

Dean remembers the knife.

If … _if_ they think that Cas was only ever his victim, not his partner, then Cas has a chance of getting out. If nothing else, go to a mental institution, where he has some chance of being free someday, a chance of actually being helped past all the trauma Dean has heaped on him. Cas could go along with the doctors, say he's not an angel, and he could be free in a few years. Free from Dean.

He remembers holding Cas in his arms, remembers Cas's breathing slow, become steady. How it felt to hold him, the comfort he'd tried to take now given with a single gesture of undeserved trust, and how it felt to keep Cas safe, safe from that knife, and all the thoughts it carries with it.

He turns the car on.

Seacrest Memorial Park. It's the closest.

He pulls out of the parking lot.

\------------------

By the third cemetery, he's begun silently praying that David Searn is, in fact, buried in this town. If not, he's screwed. He's also begun breaking into offices looking at records. It's faster than physically inspecting the cemetery, and he's running out of time. There's at least another two victims to go – depending if he'd go for male children (hasn't so far) or sisters, if there's more than one daughter to the mother (not the case so far). In any case, the acceleration in the murders means a clock is ticking.

David Searns is buried in the fourth cemetery. 

There are no street lights here, as per the usual in cemeteries, so he takes a lamp with him, shovel over his shoulder along with a bag, looks at the map of burial sites he took from the office, and starts walking.

The headstone is small, the date recent, and it says 'Beloved Son'. 

"My ass," Dean mutters, puts the lamp down, and digs.

Normally he'd keep an eye out – or have his partner do it for him – in case the ghost realized what was up and decided to stop him from salting and burning the bones. Instead, he finds himself thinking about Cas.

About what to do about Cas.

The kernel of it is already there, of course. Cas has to be Dean Winchester's victim, not his equal partner. It has the advantage of being true, as well as convenient. Cas is mentally ill, not like sociopath Dean; that's the idea he has to give them. The firm reality he has to give them, if they haven't thought of it themselves. 

Which they might have, simply because of how Cas is going to react to being a prisoner. The physical indications of Dean's influence are gone, but the psychological ones remain. It wouldn't be hard to scare Cas into a blackout, and he has little doubt they would try that technique to try to get through to him. Cas will tell them Dean is innocent, of course, and that just reinforces the idea that Dean has control over him, that Cas is not a willing partner, that Cas is so fucked up in the head he can't fight back.

Dean himself is the final piece of the puzzle. All he has to do is give them the bodies; make them certain that Cas is just another victim. 

He barely looks up in time to see David Searn rush him.

Next thing he sees, he's out of the grave – he was almost to the coffin, only a thin layer of dirt remaining – and there's a pain in his chest from being hit and dragged. He sees a flash of blue, faint light, as he feels around for the shotgun. He reaches it, and in less than a second brings it around and fires.

The ghost scatters into wisps with a scream.

Dean gets up with a grunt, shotgun in one hand and the shovel in the other. He looks around, decides David Searn will be gone for a bit, puts the shotgun into his jeans and hops back down in the grave. He starts digging, redoubling his efforts while keeping an eye out. By the time he's got dirt-encrusted hands scrambling at the latch, he hears a faint moaning.

Shotgun out, he fires in that direction. Then he returns his efforts to the coffin, getting it open with some difficulty, revealing a fairly decomposed body. He makes a face at the smell, then climbs out of the grave and opens the bag to get the salt. He throws the salt in, and lights a match.

He drops it even as the ghost lunges at him again, and it dissipates into translucent fire before it reaches him, Dean stumbling back in surprise.

Dean lets out a short breath, glances at the grave.

No point to filling it in. It's not like he's going to be keeping his presence here a secret.

He grabs his supplies, and heads for the car. Cas will … depending on how things go, Cas might go back for the car. Might as well leave it ready for him. Dean puts things away carefully, like he always does.

He parks the car where he'd left it while he and Cas were at the warehouse. The sigils Cas has placed there would protect the car, at least for a while. Once they have Dean, they won't be looking so hard for the Impala, and if Cas has the chance to get away, it will be there for Cas. If Cas wants to look for it. Dean lets his fingers drift over the hood after he places the keys behind one of the back wheels. There isn't a speck of dust on her, and he smiles slightly. 

Then he heads for the nearest car without an alarm.

Thirty minutes later, just after one in the morning, he walks up to the receptionist at the police department. "Hi," he says with a winning smile to the young woman. "My name is Dean Winchester."

\------------------

Dean drums his fingers on the table. The cuffs make it a little awkward, but it's worth for the almost completely concealed annoyance on the FBI agent's face. Dean isn't going to be the one to break the silence he's maintained since signing a waiver, that the FBI agent has been waiting for Dean to break. Dean has to maintain control of this from the beginning for this to work, and so he waits.

He sees it when the nameless FBI agent switches course, decides to change tactics, because his posture changes slightly. Becomes less straight, but more intent, as if this meeting is important, whereas before it was all about the intimidation, the suit.

The FBI agent leans forward, meets Dean's eyes. "So why did you turn yourself in? We didn't think we were going to catch you."

"Ah, going for the 'I admire' spiel, huh?" Dean gives a little laugh. "Yeah, that's bullshit. I mean, yeah. You wouldn't have caught me. But don't think that I'm stupid enough to fall for such an obvious line – you just want to get in with me, so I confess all my horrible sins that I'm just _so_ proud of." The sarcasm is heavy.

The agent merely looks at him mildly. "That still leaves the question of why you turned yourself in."

"Why do you think, Agent Scully?"

"You know, Agent Scully was actually very intelligent and good at her job," the agent replies calmly. "Though I happen to go by Agent Fitz, as I mentioned before. And I believe you turned yourself in for a very specific reason. One you will tell me, eventually, because you want to tell me, don't you?"

Dean cocks his head a bit, acknowledging the smooth turnaround. "I turned myself in because I'm done."

"Done killing? I find that hard to believe."

Dean nods, leans back in his chair. "I've killed enough ghosts and various sundry supernatural beings. Well, not killing the ghosts – they're already dead. But sending them off to the afterlife, yeah, that."

"I don't believe you're delusional, Dean. You're far too organized for that."

"I'm not delusional," Dean says. The best lies are true. "Most people never see the entirety of the world they live in, I guess. Don't want to or can't, I've never been able to tell – some people, when they're faced with it, they accept it. Others never do, and I've never been able to tell which one'll be which."

"And you see this world?"

Dean ignores him. "Think of it like a story. A bunch of different stories, that you think I'm playing out. This time? Those girls were daughters of a women that once humiliated a guy. He croaks, decides to use his super-duper new powers to kill. I took him out. Or maybe I'm the guy killing those girls, and there's no reason, there was never a reason, and I'm just a psycho killer. Either way, I did it, right? Either delusional or lying … they both fit your version of reality." And fits, as well, with Dean's recorded past behavior. He has to make that clear, as well.

"So you admit to killing those girls?"

"Well, they're dead, aren't they? And either it was me or it was a ghost." Dean kicks his chair back – causing Agent Fitz to stiffen and almost rise – and then settles his crossed feet on the table. "And we both know you don't think it was a ghost."

"Even if you believe it was a ghost, how do you know they're dead?"

"Found the bodies. Or put them there."

"Where are they?"

Dean lifts a finger. "Uh-uh. I want something first."

"A deal? We might be able to agree to life instead of the death penalty."

"No, not a deal," Dean says dismissively. "I want to talk to Cas."

Agent Fitz doesn't answer. Instead, he looks at Dean, eyes hard, analytic. Dean can tell he's debating whether to continue talking about the location of the girls, or the new subject, Cas. All that matters is manipulating Dean into cooperating, after all. Fitz has to decide the best route. 

Dean waits; either way, he has things to say, things to suggest to the profiler. Before he talks to Cas. Before he says goodbye – and maybe it would be better if he didn't speak to Cas at all, when the things he needs to say to Cas are so revealing, and perhaps contrary to what a real serial killer would do. Or maybe they won't be, instead seen as nothing but manipulations. Dean can only hope they won't be seen that way by Cas.

"And how does your partner fit into this?" Fitz asks at last.

"Cas?" Dean snorts. "He's not my partner. He's too weak for that. I'm sure you've been able to tell that – jumps at a mouse, he couldn't subdue and kill a girl."

"If he's not your partner, why is he with you?"

Dean smiles, but there's something bitter behind it, and he knows it shows. "He thinks he's an angel, sent from God. To save me."

"You don't believe in God?"

"I believe He's a dick," Dean says, "just like the rest of His creations."

"And Castiel?"

"The thing I learned from Cas is," Dean says, "if you teach them right, they don't leave you, no matter what you do to them. I beat him, I raped him. I made him lose his faith. And he still won't leave me." Dean has to pause, clear his throat, look Fitz right in the eye for the next part. "How pathetic is that?"

 _I'm sorry, Cas_ , he thinks. 

Fitz nods slowly. Dean can't tell what he's thinking. "So you control him now through the abuse, or you found him easy to control. Where did you find him, a cult?"

"A cult?" Dean laughs. "That's, uh, that's pretty accurate, actually. A crazy-ass cult. You think I'm nuts? Those are the real whackos out to end the world."

"So you don't believe Castiel is an angel," Fitz says.

"Testing my crazy?" Dean smiles. 

"That's not an answer," Fitz replies evenly.

"He's not one anymore," Dean says, and the words come out harsher than he intends.

"Because of you?" 

Dean looks at him, and lets Fitz believe his own reasons for why.

"Where are the girls?" Fitz asks, after a moment.

"What did I say?" Dean demands. "Cas first."

"Tells us where the girls are, and we'll consider it," Fitz says.

Dean gives him a dark look. "Do you still think you're in charge here, buddy? I talk to Cas, or they rot forever where they are. How about you go," and Dean gestures at the door loosely, "and talk to whoever is actually in charge about me seeing Cas."

"I'm the one who makes that decision, Dean, and I see no reason to allow it." Fitz is brisk, matter-of-fact. "If Castiel is in fact not your partner, then seeing you will only traumatize him further. And you have already confessed and confirmed the death of those seven women. What leverage to do you have?"

"The families," Dean says, "will want the bodies. You and I both know that." The FBI makes a move to interrupt, but Dean gets there first. "Ask Cas. He'll agree to see me."

Fitz stares at Dean for a long moment, and that tells Dean he's already won. It's a fairly simple request, after all. "Through glass," Fitz says.

"In person," Dean replies. "As many guards as you want." He would have spread his hands welcomingly, but the cuffs stop him.

Fitz nods and gets up, silently leaving the room.

Dean looks at the mirror, and tries to figure out exactly what he's going to say. 'I'm sorry' seems far too late. Something about Cas moving on, maybe. That's the whole point of this charade, and Cas should know it. Should know that Dean wants him to leave him at last, wants him to move on. Dean is going to stop strangling Cas to death with his want to keep Cas to himself, his want to keep the last thing he loves near him.

He waits at least twenty minutes before Fitz comes back, followed by two police officers. One pushes his feet off the table.

"Well?" Dean asks, impatient.

"No more than ten minutes. Your hands will be cuffed behind your back, and you will not be alone with him at any time, and we stop it the instant you threaten physical or emotional harm," Fitz replies.

Dean just nods, not feeling like sparring with words. Fitz studies him as Dean is re-cuffed, and led down a short hallway to another room. One of the officers holds his arm, and the other opens the door.

Cas is there, sitting at a table, not cuffed. He looks away from a female FBI agent when Dean enters, and almost moves to rise, stops himself at the last second. He looks exhausted – big surprise, in the middle of the night after being interrogated – but comes to attention the instant he sees Dean.

Looking into his blue eyes, Dean sees it all the more clearly now. Now that it's over, and words are all Dean has to offer. Dean had only looked at himself, when he raped Castiel. He hadn't wanted to see what person he was doing those things to, those things he took and took, locked inside his own head.

Now he looks outward, and Castiel is all he sees. 

He sees the buried emotion in Castiel's eyes, the love wrapped from sight by the scar tissue of pain.  
.  
"Hey, Cas," and the words come out far softer and quieter than he thought they would.

"Are you all right?" Cas asks, looking Dean over carefully.

Dean nods, feeling the guilt surge at the concern, then takes a step forward, only to be brought short by the grip of the officer. "I confessed to killing those girls."

From the look on Cas's face, he knows that, but he asks the question anyway: "Why?"

Dean glances at Fitz instead of answering, and he knows this time his look is pleading, no longer in control. Fitz's is wary, but after a long moment he nods to the police officer, who lets Dean go.

Dean takes two slow, careful steps forward towards Cas, which causes the female FBI agent to take a step closer to Cas as well. When he reaches where Cas is sitting, he kneels – because this is it, this is for Cas, and he has to know – and Cas looks down at him, blinking in surprise. "I have done so many awful things, Cas."

"Dean –"

"Not just to you." His breath is shaky when he takes it in, voice quiet. "Does it really matter if I killed these particular people? I've done enough that I deserve to pay, here and later. I know where I'm going, Cas, I know what's there and I deserve it."

Cas shakes his head, almost frantically. "No, you're not going to hell. Dean, you're not. You tried – you wanted to save that last girl, and all of the others, that _counts_."

Dean ignores his words. Cas is just repeating what he's been telling himself, the things he tells himself to make things seem as if they're all right, that what Cas sacrificed himself for was worth it, the words he needs to hear. But Dean can't say them. They aren't true. 

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and it's like a barrier is taken away, the one that has kept him silent for so many weeks, the words he locked down inside because he was afraid of facing it. Facing Cas. They come now, spill out, uncontrollable, voice hoarse – "I know no apology can make up for what I did to you. You're not the first person I've tortured and raped, Cas. I did so much worse to those in hell. But you did nothing to deserve it, and … I'm so sorry."

"I –"

Dean can't let him finish. "You saw me for the monster I am, and saved me anyway. And you love me, even after all I've done." Because he sees it, sees it still when he looks at Cas, and only God knows how Cas is capable of the emotion after what Dean did to him. Dean takes a deep breath. "And maybe this means nothing, but I don't see an angel when I look at you. I just see Cas, my friend." The words almost die in his throat, then, "The one I wanted to be my lover."

He can see tears gathering in the corner of Cas's eyes. "I could have been," he whispers, looking away.

Dean shuts his eyes, unable to face him. "They know you didn't help me."

"You think I care about that?" Cas says almost inaudibly. 

Eyes opening almost unwillingly, Dean sees the FBI agents shifting restlessly, trying to hear – they're only feet away, but Cas is so quiet Dean can barely hear him. "I want you to have a normal life, Cas. It's not fair to you to – to live in abandoned warehouses, hunted or hunting."

"So you're just going to leave me alone? Give up?"

Dean sees the despair on Cas's face, but he knows the source: Dean himself, Dean tying Cas to himself through both love and pain. "I have to pay the price for what I did, Cas. You never did anything wrong, you don't deserve to be taken down with me, and that's all that would happen. We're caught, it's over. And you come first. You can – you can have that normal life, Cas. A good life."

Cas says nothing, looking away, some inner turmoil working within him, visible on his face. Dean waits, and waits, and finally, Cas looks at him again. "Dean … do you love me?" Cas hesitating to look at him.

Dean meets his eyes, and – yes. The answer is yes. Has been, hidden, for so long, twisted by the darkness in Dean's soul into something more evil than good. "Yes. I do." 

After a long moment, the look on Cas's face calms, the upset fading and transforming into something Dean hasn't seen in a long time. Cas reaches out and puts his hand on the sides of Dean's face. He leans in, and whispers close, "I didn't pull you from hell just so you could throw yourself back in."

Then he presses a soft kiss to Dean's lips.

Almost immediately, Dean feels a grip around his upper arm, dragging him to his feet and away from Cas. He's breathing unsteadily, forces himself to stop and calm down as Cas sits there, watching him.

"That's enough, I think," the female FBI agent says, looking at Fitz. Fitz stares at Dean like he's a fascinating animal, then seems to come back to himself. He gestures for the officers to take Dean out, and they do, the last thing Dean sees of Cas being that considering look. Dean doesn't know what to think of Cas's last words, but he hopes that calmness means Cas accepts the situation they're in. That he accepts going on without Dean there.

After about a minute, Fitz follows, until they're in the interrogation room again. "We had a deal," Fitz reminds him.

Dean looks away, still shaking from talking with Cas. The last time he'll ever talk to him, he's sure. Once they start treating Cas for thinking he's an angel, they won't let him be in contact with Dean. Dean is … Dean is really alone now. The thought frightens him, stupidly. What did he think he was getting into? "East Crest High gymnasium."

He hears Fitz talking to someone as he sits down in the chair, wrists a dull ache behind him, feeling numb. 

Fitz walks into his line of sight, looking at him. "Interesting," he says.

"Fuck off."

Fitz is unfazed. "What I saw wasn't the act of a serial killer. Sociopaths are extraordinarily convincing, charming. You were neither. If you are indeed our killer, you are a very unique one."

Dean looks up at him, tired. "Cas'll be okay, won't he? He won't be charged with the murders."

"He seems uninvolved, at this point," Fitz says. "He certainly wasn't present for the earlier killings, the ones with your brother. The evidence from your dump site along with a thorough psychoanalysis will tell us more."

Dean knows they'll only find his presence near those bodies. It's enough. "I'd like to sign my confession now."

\------------------

Castiel is sure Dean couldn't see the subtle shivers working through him as he left. Dean had looked at him like it was the last time he'd ever see Cas again.

Burrows places a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

Castiel glances at her, doesn't reply.

She moves away, sits down across from him like before. "I'm told that you believe you're an angel. The original Castiel, angel of Thursday?"

"I was," Castiel answers. How long ago that seems. But that's not what he's focusing on right now – now, it's Dean. He understands the words Dean spoke, but he never expected to hear them. 

"But not anymore?"

She's curious and waiting when Castiel looks at her. "What will happen to Dean?"

"He knew where the bodies are, and he's confessed. At this point, even if he doesn't plead guilty, he's going away for the rest of his life at the least." She leans in. "For whatever reason, Castiel, he chose to give you the right thing, and separate you from himself."

Castiel shakes his head. She doesn't understand – doesn't understand anything, because she doesn't know the entirety of it, not even with what he already told her. 

Burrows shifts, then stills, an uncertainty in her eyes that settles into a decision. "When I was a psychology student, I volunteered at the local women's shelter. For the two years I was there, I cannot tell you how many times I met women who had been so horribly abused by their spouses or boyfriends, and how many of those women said they still loved their abusers, how long it took for them to break away from that destructive relationship."

Castiel sees the sorrow in her face as she studies him, and knows what she in turn sees.

"It takes a lot of strength to pull away from that kind of intense relationship, but when they did it? Castiel, they lived such better lives. Just as you can."

"It's not that simple," Castiel says. "I'm not – I’m not –"

"Human?" Her eyes are piercing. "But you are, Castiel. Every word you've said to me … you are far more human than Dean Winchester ever was."

But he isn't. He was more than human, and he still needs to be that, for Dean's sake.

"Don’t choose your abuser over yourself," Burrows says quietly. 

"Let me think," Castiel says at last, not meeting her too-penetrating gaze, and she waits. Still not looking at Burrow, he continues, "I don't want to talk, I want to be put in a cell so I can sleep."

He hears her move slightly. "If you insist, Castiel, and I'm sure you must be tired. But don't forget what I've said, okay?"

"I want to sleep," he says again. He needs to be alone. 

"Tell the guard if you need anything," she tells him after a hesitation, then leaves the room. In the few precious moments he has before the officer comes in, he casually leans over the open file folder she'd left behind, and slips a paperclip from it, pulls his hands into his lap, and neatly attaches it to the waistband of his underwear.

An officer opens the door, cuffs him for the short walk to an empty cell, and leaves him there. Cas sits down on the bunk, takes a moment to stop shaking, gather resolve, and then starts looking around the cell, hoping he finds what he needs. A long piece of cloth would also work – to strangle himself – but that kind of injury is less suited to his purpose. The cell isn't large, a little longer than he is tall, about his height across, a small window to the outside with bars, the walls concrete blocks. He looks out to the hallway, to make sure there's no guard nearby, then starts examining every wall, the bed, the floor, the ceiling, praying the whole while.

Then he sees it. A sliver of razor, maybe an inch long, several centimeters high, wedged into a corner of the bunk beneath the mattress.

A heavy breath escapes him, and then he tries to get it out, slicing a few of his fingers in the process, droplets of blood welling up. He ignores them, and the blood smears as he finally loosens it. He takes off his overshirt, gets a good grip on the razor, and looks at his left wrist. He judges it has been long enough that a good portion of the FBI and police have gone to the location Dean gave in return for their brief meeting.

Then he cuts.

Deep, but not deep enough. He has to measure it, carefully, and not think about the lurking darkness, looming within reach, tempting. _Not yet_ , he thinks. It hurts as he makes the cuts, and his hand shakes after the first slice, but he makes three more lengthwise along his wrist. Then he drops the razor, takes a deep breath, and screams.

A guard is racing down the hallway in seconds, stopping before Castiel's cell and cursing when he sees the blood all over the floor and flowing from Castiel's wrist. He's kneeling in it, his pants soaking up blood. There's a lot of it, more than Castiel is expecting. He swallows thickly, then screams again, hoarse and hurting his throat, for good effect.

"Suicide attempt, we need a bus," the guard calls into a radio, as another barrels down the hallway and starts opening the cell.

Castiel is getting dizzy.

When the blackness comes, it's not like the other times at all.

\------------------

He wakes to a slow beep.

His body feels relaxed and comfortable, a little cold, with heavy blankets pressing, but his left wrist is blazing pain and his other has a familiar line of pressure along it. He blinks his eyes open to a white ceiling, then looks around. A guard sits reading a paper, looks up when Castiel makes a slight movement, cuffed wrist clanking against the guard rail. He doesn't say anything to Castiel, instead pressing a button, then taking a sip of his coffee.

A doctor comes in, starts talking to Castiel.

It goes right over his head, meaningless muffled noises. Castiel looks blankly at him, then at the ceiling. He hears something about a psych eval, which is precisely what he wants to hear. The guard grunts when something is said to him.

Castiel closes his eyes, exhausted.

He has only the one guard. Two is protocol, he knows. When he woke up in a shrimp boat and was brought to a hospital, the person in the bed next to him was a prisoner, with two guards who complained about wasting their time on a disabled inmate. 

He'd never really thought that experience would come in handy.

He only has to get rid of the one, long enough for him to pick the lock – a skill Dean taught him – and get out of the hospital. They already believe him mentally fragile, so he knew the suicide attempt would be taken seriously, knows the near-catatonia he's been exhibiting is expected. He knows they will think him incapable of enough thought to escape, and escape is the necessary goal, because he has to save Dean. He has no idea how he's going to do it, no idea what to do except find the Impala the moment he steps out of the hospital, but he'll think of something, because he has to. 

Every word Dean told him is true. That much had been immediately clear. Seeing it, Castiel hesitated for a moment, thinking, _this is the man who raped me. This is the man I love._ Two incompatible things, except there they were, and Burrows words echoing in his head. What Dean offers, what Dean says Castiel should do, is what Burrows says he should take.

But he can't.

He'd saved Dean from hell, sacrificed himself for Dean and his brother, and none of that had been a waste. None of it would be. Castiel can do what he did before – save Dean, except this time, save him from himself. 

Castiel understands what Dean is doing, that he perceives that this will help right the wrongs he's committed, but most of all Dean's primary goal is to save Castiel, not himself. And that in itself makes Dean worth saving. The righteous man whose soul should have gone to heaven still exists, buried beneath crimes committed and guilt, and whether Castiel goes on or not, he knows Dean will, and where Dean spends that eternity matters. Castiel still loves Dean, after all, desperately and fully. Dean, who has always tried so hard to do the right thing, and failed, but he's no different from the rest of humanity in that. 

Humanity has always been given grace by God, and the point of grace is that it is freely offered, not earned or deserved. Dean repents, and he knows that will never be enough, but it doesn't need to be. The mere existence of it, the way it had shone through Dean, is enough. Castiel can choose to save him anyway. Castiel can choose to forgive, even if he's not quite able yet. In the past weeks he has thought sometimes he would never be able to, but that has changed with the revelation of Dean's words. _You come first_. And Castiel can use that.

Dean will not spend the rest of his life in prison, not if Castiel has any choice. He'll spend it being what he is, a hunter. That, not prison, will lead Dean out of the darkness he put himself and Castiel in. And maybe in doing so, he can heal the darkness inside – the darkness Castiel still fears – and Dean can become Castiel's friend again. For whatever time he has left, Castiel wants was once his, all he has left. And maybe that's the truth – desperation upon desperation behind his careful reasoning, all for Dean.

Dean.

Castiel opens his eyes, vision blurred, wetness trailing down the sides of his temple, and then looks around. The doctor is gone, and the beeping has gone silent. The heart monitor has been shut down, presumably since Castiel's condition is stable. The guard remains, of course. But he is only one person, and eventually, he will have to leave, even if for only a few minutes. Castiel is, after all, well acquainted with the needs of the human body.

He waits, still and silent, for a period of time he cannot guess at, until the guard shifts with a muttered curse. He pushes that button again, not even bothering to glance at Castiel, and a nurse comes. 

"Keep an eye on him, would you?" the guard asks.

The nurse sighs. "Not for long," she says, and stares intently at the clipboard she's holding, making notes, similarly ignoring Castiel's presence. Within a minute, someone calls a name, and she turns. Castiel quickly shuts his eyes, then waits to hear her footsteps fade.

He's alone when he opens his eyes. He finds the paperclip where he left it, grasping with his left hand, and lets out a silent breath. The window he has is very short. The bandages on his left wrist make it awkward, and he realizes he probably should have cut the other wrist, but it's too late now. He makes do, bending the paperclip with his teeth, and with his heart racing – expecting the guard any minute – he picks the lock. 

It opens with a snap, and he's surging to his feet. As he stands, his vision goes black for a moment before returning, spots floating. He tries to blink them away, keeps moving, stumbling a bit.

His blood-soaked shirt and jeans are gone, cut off his body, so he goes through drawers until he finds some scrubs, and slips them on quickly. The next moment he's at the hallway, seeing if there are any familiar faces, anyone who would recognize him and raise the alarm. There isn't, by some fortune, and the hospital is nearly deserted this time of night, and so he walks, calmly but quickly – the window closing and closing – until he reaches a door that leads to the stairwell. He runs down, barefoot, and by the time he reaches the parking lot, he knows his absence must have been noticed.

He briefly considers stealing a car, but realizes he doesn't have the tools. 

So instead, he runs, and tries to remember where the hospital is in relation to the warehouse, and the Impala parked two blocks away. 

He has to duck into alleys and behind dumpsters when he hears a siren wail past, but otherwise keeps moving, feet picking up dirt, wishing the blue scrubs were some dark color to blend into the darkness. He knows Dean and Sam had always taken note of where the nearest hospitals were before they started any case, and Dean has kept that up with Castiel, especially in the last few cases they took. 

Castiel ducks into a shadowed alcove, closes his eyes, and waits for another wailing siren to pass. He knows the warehouse – an industrial area – is somewhere south of the hospital. Then he's moving again, walking in that general direction, and starts looking for familiar street names. 

When he doesn't hear any police cars for some time, he pauses and breathes deeply. He estimates he's been running for almost half an hour, and his body is weak and protesting. Blood is seeping through the bandage on his wrist. He has no idea how long he was unconscious, but hopefully dawn is still several hours away. 

He doesn't know how long he has to come up with some kind of plan. He isn't sure if Dean never considered breaking Castiel out, instead immediately going for the option of sacrificing himself, or if Dean considered it and concluded it wasn't possible. Either way, Castiel has to come up with something. For that, he'll need help. He's aware that most of the people Dean ever trusted are dead, and Castiel certainly doesn't have his own contacts, but he also knows that Dean kept contact information from the various people he and Sam had helped over the years, in their father's journal.

It is nothing less than pure desperation which makes Castiel hope that Dean left the car where it was – he knows Dean wouldn't take it with him to be seized by the FBI, at least – left the journal in the car, and that there is someone in that journal who can help. So many things that have to go right. He lifts a quick prayer in his mind for the multitude of things he needs, and finally, he sees a street he recognizes. 

An indeterminable amount of time later, he sees the Impala, in perfect condition where Dean had left her. 

The instant his hands hit her hood, he calms. He searches around the car, finds the key behind a wheel, and then finds the journal, and the backup cell left in the trunk.

Then he starts making phone calls.

\------------------

Dean is alone with Fitz when Fitz is notified of something by a harried police officer. It's been hours since Dean saw Cas, and the gymnasium is no doubt still a crime scene, but something about this makes Dean's skin prickle. The expression on the agent's face hardly changes when he turns back to Dean, but Dean still gets the feeling that something important is going on, so he demands, "What is it?"

Fitz studies him.

"Is it Cas?" A flicker of something. "It is Cas."

"I find your continued preoccupation with Castiel very interesting," Fitz says. "You should have simply moved on, since he's useless to you now, regardless of whether he is your victim or partner. Unless you're interested in his continued suffering, which I don't think is the case."

"What can I say, I'm complex," Dean says with a humorless smile. "A body a day keeps the monster away. I've had my fill."

Fitz tilts his head in apparent puzzlement. "So you flick sociopathic behavior on and off, like a switch? Kill the girls, care for Cas?"

Dean looks away. He's not sure if Fitz is acting like he wants to be convinced – or isn't convinced, and trying to prove it – to get Dean to talk, or because he actually isn't sure. Either way, Dean needs to the be the killer, for Cas's sake. "It's more like … more like long periods, where I'm out of my head. And I do things because that's what there is. Hanging on the rack or off of it."

"The rack?"

Dean makes an aborted attempt to wave a hand, cuffs pulling. "Tortured or torturer."

"And you chose the latter."

Pretty sick that he does – did – put Cas on the rack, instead of himself. "And I guess that's what makes me evil, isn't it?" He looks at Fitz.

"So who was that hurt you, Dean? Your father?"

"No," Dean says shortly. Dad's punishments were never violent. The disappointment and occasional drunken rages about Dean's failures were far more cutting. Hell – hell taught Dean things about himself he never wanted to know. He knows that's where the evil is from. Cas pulled him out of hell, but couldn't pull hell out of Dean. Or maybe he did – ten years off the rack, it was easier than he imagined to act normal, hell sharp and clear in some areas, faded in others. Dean is just too weak to take what was given.

"But someone did," Fitz presses, watchful.

"Does it really matter?"

"This topic bothers you," Fitz observes. "Most are eager enough to explain away what they are, and yes, Dean, it is a topic of interest to us. We're always trying to learn what makes people like you tick."

Dean snorts. 

"Your – friend, Castiel, mentioned hell to us, that there are only the victims and those who inflict the pain to those victims. On the rack or off it, as you said." Fitz waits, Dean silent, then says, "What was your hell, Dean?"

Dean lets out a bitter, hollow laugh. "The real thing, Agent Fitz. That's where this monster was born."

"And Castiel, as an angel, saved you?"

Dean looks up. "It's all just metaphors to you, isn't it?"

"It's real to you? You seem very aware of the difference between reality and fantasy, even capable of seeing it from another's person of view, which is rare for the truly delusional. You seem – very close to reality, Dean."

"That's because it's all real. Even if we're looking at opposite sides of the same thing, it still meets in the middle, doesn't it?" Dean looks at the mirror behind Fitz, knowing this is being recorded. "You want to know what I've done? I can tell you. I can tell you the best way to torture someone. I can tell you the best way to break them. I learned that well … the best pupil, that's me."

Fitz raises an eyebrow. "If you're the student, who is the teacher?"

"Dust," Dean says flatly. "What happened to Cas?"

After a long second, Fitz answers, "He escaped the hospital after being placed there because of a suicide attempt."

"What?" and Dean is jerking halfway out of his chair.

"Dean, _sit down._ "

He does, reluctantly. 

"He's not in physical danger – he didn't cut into his wrists deep enough to cut into an artery, thankfully. However, we are concerned about his mental state, and that he might harm himself again. Do you know where he would go?" Fitz is calm, and waiting for an answer, probably even a reasoned one.

Dean doesn't know what to think. Cas – and that damn knife. Dean thought Cas would be safe, watched, so he couldn't do anything like that. Fuck. He should have told them Cas was suicidal, but he'd been stupid enough to believe once separated from Dean Cas would be okay.

"Dean."

The Impala. But he couldn't tell them that – if Cas wanted to escape, then Cas had to the have the freedom to do that. If Cas wanted … Dean wouldn't be responsible for putting him into something he didn't want, not anymore. "I don't know."

"I don't believe that," Fitz says, with a hint of harshness in place of the usual calm blandness. 

Dean looks up at him, wearied. He's allowed to the talk to go on into the early hours because he'd promised to cooperate – and because he knows Fitz wants to push him, to get the truth – but he's had enough. "Cas should be allowed to do what he wants. I think he deserves it at this point, don't you?" He keeps his voice even and without give. 

Fitz seems to recognize it. He studies Dean a moment longer, then asks, "Then tell me more about hell."

\------------------

"Thank you," Castiel says.

Mr. Kasey, an older man with white hair and a decent gut, gives Castiel a genial smile and shakes Castiel's hand. "Least we could do, after what Dean and Sam did for our daughter."

"Nevertheless, you are taking a great risk in hiding us," Castiel says.

"Don't you worry, son, everything will be ready."

Castiel nods, and leaves with another murmured 'thank you'. He goes out to the Impala in the Kasey's dirt driveway, looking at the fields surrounding the farm for a long moment. Then he goes around to the trunk, opens it, and takes a good long look at what's there. He has one part of the plan; the rest is dependent on how much Dean loves a good variety of weapons, and Castiel's ability to use said weapons strategically. 

Strategy is not unfamiliar to Castiel; as a soldier, he certainly knows plenty, not just from the very different fields of heaven and hell, but on the plains of the human world, bound to a human body just as the demons were. But the last time he'd been on earth, more than two thousand years past, they could only dream of the weapons they had now. 

Castiel starts his inventory with a sigh and faint, rising hope that he'll get Dean out of this.

\------------------

It's early morning, and a day and a night having gone by since Castiel last saw Dean.

The sun has yet to rise, and each exhale of Cas's breath is visible. The cold seeps through the one set of clothing Cas found in the Impala, along with a jacket from Mr. Kasey, and he shivers as he walks, evaluating what he's done so far, a pack slung over his shoulder and hands full. The area is half-forested, with enough hills to make line of sight difficult. Not only useful, but essential.

Of the vast amount of time Castiel had spent making phone calls – first determining if they'd be willing to help, then evaluating said person's resources – only a few had ended up being what he needed.

Deacon had ended up being probably the most useful, besides the Kasey's. A friend of John Winchester who knew Dean and Sam, as a guard at a jail Deacon was the most familiar with Dean's current situation and what that actually meant. Castiel learned that they would move him out of the city into county custody – killers like they believe Dean to be, and as famous as Dean is to the area, aren't usually safe where they commit their crimes, so they transfer them while awaiting trial. And Deacon judged that they would transfer Dean within a day, after Dean had been thoroughly questioned by the FBI and given his statement. It was clear to Castiel then that his best opportunity to break Dean out would be during this transfer, and Deacon had confirmed it.

Castiel reaches the road and settles in the ditch for the last time. The sun's rays have just barely begun to peek over the tops of the trees, slices of light laying across the asphalt. This is the road; this has to be the road. _They'll pick one with moderate traffic, nothing heavy. Remember, they want to get Dean out without media attention_. Deacon's words. Castiel nods to himself. This is it. 

Departure from the police station at 6:00 AM (confirmed by a friend of a friend of a friend of Detective Ballard's, another contact), it will take them approximately twenty-three minutes to get to this bend in the road. 

He shifts the load on his shoulder, checks the strap of the sling he has on his back with the shotgun. He's got a crowbar in one hand, and two lines of spikes in the other.

6:19 AM.

He gets up, and lies the spike strips – where Dean had gotten those, he had no idea, and it had taken him some time to figure out what they were – carefully across both lanes, staggered. 

With his now empty hand, he shifts the crowbar to his belt, and takes out a shock grenade and a modified Molotov cocktail – courtesy of the armaments in the Impala's trunk – one in hand, the other set down by the ground where he sits in the ditch.

Then he waits.

His body aches faintly from the cold of morning, and the bandage on his wrist is spotted with blood. The stitches have held for the most part, but all the activity Castiel must do with his hands means some break. He pushes down the pain, and watches the road, tensing and relaxing muscles so they don't get stiff.

He sees the unmarked car first. A black sedan, followed by the marked police car. The sedan hits the strip first, front tires instantly blown out and the car spinning around with a screech, out of control. The police car can't stop in time, swerves, and hits the second strip across the divider, and before the police car even halts, Castiel has the Molotov cocktail lit and he throws it at the foot of the sedan. 

He can see the police officer driving the patrol car start to react, but he's there with the crowbar and smashes the window, ducking against the side of the car as he hears several wild gunshots. 

Smoke is billowing from the sedan, choking the air as the fire spreads, and Castiel can dimly see the agents out of the car, stumbling from the fire separating them from Castiel and the police car. Their weapons are raised, but by some miracle the police car has spun out so that the bulk of it is between Castiel and the FBI agents. So all Castiel does is pull the pin on the shock grenade he'd grabbed after throwing the cocktail and throw it through the shattered police car window, even as the door partway opens, and then he runs precious feet to the rear of the vehicle and covers his ears and shuts his eyes.

It goes off with an explosive bang, Castiel hoping it doesn't cause the officers too much damage, and feels guilty even knowing that it's less damaging than a gun, the only other option. He takes a deep breath and gets up, ears ringing, and yanks open the back car door and seizes the first thing he catches, which happens to be clothing. He can hardly see anything because of the smoke as he drags Dean out of the car.

Dean is coughing but complying, half stumbling and half running. It doesn't take them long to reach the tree line, and then Castiel is abruptly forcing them to turn slightly, go around a set of trees, then return to the normal, straight course. 

The agents aren't far behind, shouting, "FBI! Don't move!" in a mismatched chorus. Castiel doesn't hear them hit the trick wire, but he hears the bomb going off, safely away from where he knows the FBI agents to be following – they would choose the path of least resistance, a straight line to Castiel and Dean running, because there would be no reason not to – and he hears more shouting, fading slowly as he and Dean race away. Their progress will be stopped by caution, Castiel hopes, long enough.

Dean is finally running something approximating full speed, but Castiel keeps a grip on his collar, sure that Dean is still deaf and blind, and he hears Dean wheezing. He chances a look back, and sure enough, Dean's eyes are squinted and his face is red.

Castiel lets go of Dean to shift his grip, and Dean stumbles to a stop. Castiel takes his hand, and says, "We have to keep moving."

Dean nods blindly, and they go.

They run past the trees, the ground now thankfully mostly flat – providing little for Dean to trip over – and they go miles as Castiel listens for anyone following. Dean seems to get his breath partway through, breathing fast but easily, and starts stumbling less. There's no breath left for questions, and Dean doesn't ask any.

Then they abruptly break into a field of wheat. Dean stops. "Cas –"

Castiel yanks. "No time," he snaps, and pulls until Dean gives in.

They move across the field, towards a barn painted red and sitting next to a quaint house. Mr. Kasey is in front, and when they run into the barn, he follows. Castiel leads Dean to the cellar on the far side of the barn, wooden doors swung open, and pulls him down the short set of stairs. He sees Dean look up in confusion when Mr. Kasey shuts the doors behind them, leaving them in utter darkness. Almost immediately, a faint sound of something moving up above filters down.

There's a long moment of dark silence as Castiel catches his breath. Then he can hear Dean breathing, fast, as Castiel stumbles in the dark before finding the small lamp lit by batteries. The soft glow starts suddenly, exposing the cellar, which is dirt floor and walls made of uneven planks, lined with a few shelves, six by eight feet. 

Dean slumps against an empty wall, looking both winded and stunned, a strangely vulnerable look on his face. Then, softly, "Cas. You shouldn't have done this."

"No," Cas says equally softly, sitting down opposite Dean. "I shouldn't have."

Dean's eyes are half-closed, as he sits there and breathes. "Then why did you?"

Castiel raises his head and makes sure his gaze is even and composed even as his breathing slows. He feels a flutter of fear this close to Dean, but he throttles it ruthlessly. "You owe me, Dean. You owe me everything." 

Dean closes his eyes, and swallows. "I know."

"Then you will give me this," and despite himself, there's more question in there than he wants. It all depends on this; he doesn't know how to take Dean back if not this.

Dean can't seem to look at him. "And what is that?"

"The rest of your life." 

Dean exhales slowly. An eternity of time seems to pass before he nods. 

"Thank you," Castiel says, relieved. He doesn't doubt Dean doesn't understand the entirety of what he's agreed to, but that will wait.

Dean looks up, smiles a little, as if Castiel has said something amusing. Starts to say something, then stops, before, "Who exactly are we guests of?" and gestures to up above.

"I'm surprised you don't remember," Castiel says, relaxing. "The Kasey's remember you very well."

"Kasey, Kasey," Dean says, squinting, seeming to grab onto the topic with desperation. "Wait. The ones with the possessed daughter?"

Castiel nods. "Yes. I was lucky – they were one of the first ones I called."

"Called?"

"How else was I to get help?"

Dean is clearly thinking, a furrow between his brows. Then a measured look at Castiel. "How exactly did you pull this off? Were you alone when you stopped those two cars?"

"Yes," Castiel says. "The Kasey's are only going to hide us. Mr. Kasey's going to cover us with a fair amount of hay, make it look like it's been there for some time. They've hardly ever used this cellar, so even their neighbors don't know it's here. But we have to be quiet when law enforcement comes looking." Castiel pauses, then adds, "The car's hidden in the city, where I doubt they'll be looking for it, and Mr. Kasey will get it for us when the time is right."

A moment where Dean almost speaks, then, "Soldier of God, huh?" And he's smiling, but not without sadness.

"I'm not clueless when it comes to strategy, Dean."

Dean stares at him for a long moment. Castiel can't tell what he's thinking, just that there's something weirdly soft there. "Well, it's impressive, I gotta admit, but you do realize you committed all kinds of crimes back there. At least a few felonies, Cas, who knows what else, if anyone got hurt. And you were home free. They didn't think you were involved – I made sure of that."

Castiel puts up a knee, lays his right wrist on it, holds the other in his lap. "No one was hurt permanently." He meets Dean's gaze. "And you won't get better in a prison cell."

" _Get better?_ " Dean's eyes narrow even as he repeats it. "Get better? Better than what? Being a rapist?"

Castiel winces. Then, slowly, "I don't know how it's decided which souls go to heaven, and which ones don't. I know yours would have been bound there, if not for your deal."

"But you don't know now," Dean states.

"You feel guilt, don't you?" 

Dean looks away.

"Then do something to right your wrongs." That's the key, after all.

"And what would that be? Hunting? Cas, I – I was trying to do just that, for you. Why the fuck couldn't you take it? Dammit, Cas, you stuck yourself with me again, how could you want that?" Dean made an aborted movement to get up, then stills with a huff of frustration, glaring at the low ceiling.

"Because I still love you, you asshole," Castiel snaps, and runs his good hand through his hair. "Only God knows why!" _Because I can't figure it out._

Dean doesn't look at him, rubs his eyes, probably more out of tiredness than anything else. "I'm sorry," he says, and it comes out high, upset.

"You agreed, Dean," Castiel says lowly.

"And I'll hold to it. I think it's a really fucking bad idea, but I'll hold to it." Dean bites his lip, sighs. "I'll set you up, so you don't have to hunt, and I'll –"

" _We'll_ start hunting again, when the FBI hunt dies down," Castiel interrupts.

Dean looks utterly flabbergasted. "Why?" 

Castiel focuses on the floor, without answering. He's given this a lot of thought over the past day, but the fear and pain and love tend to drown out the logic. Burrows had been right that the trauma linked him to Dean, and it seems irrevocable. A world without Dean is unfathomable, now. He fears Dean, he hates Dean, but then he loves Dean, and wants to be with him; he wants the old Dean, the old Castiel. The two sides war, and Castiel doesn't answer because there is no answer. 

Time ticks by.

"Cas, you're bleeding." Dean moves slowly, takes the one step needed to bring him to Castiel's side, waits, then reaches out and take's Castiel's wrist to turn it over. Castiel watches him rather than his wrist, until Dean turns his whole attention to it.

The blood is dripping from the bandage onto the dirt. 

"I might as well have cut you myself," Dean mutters. He takes off his jacket, the one that the jail provided him, then starts to pick at the bandage. 

"I'm fine," Castiel says finally, aware that his answer is weirdly late.

Dean doesn't reply, just takes his jacket and wraps it awkwardly around Castiel's wrist, applying hard pressure.

"It was a way to escape the jail, Dean, nothing more."

"I doubt that," Dean says shortly. "I'm not an idiot. I know what you were thinking. When you were cutting, you're saying it never occurred to you to just go a little deeper?"

Cas stares at his wrist. "Just a physical manifestation of hurt, I suppose."

A sigh. "You're damaged, Cas."

"And who made me that way?" Castiel snaps. 

And there is Dean's guilt, settling between them silently like the heavy weight of snow, blinding and stifling. 

Dean says in vain – and he knows it – "I'm sorry."

"I don't want your apologies," Castiel replies. A half-truth – he's relieved to have gotten one, but that can't be his focus now. He wants more. He has to demand more. Every inch Dean will give him. "I want your obedience."

Dean looks up at him sharply.

Castiel raises an eyebrow, heart thundering. What did Dean think he meant by that promise?

Dean nods, slowly. "And that's it? That's what you want from me?"

Castiel takes his time before replying, watching Dean stare at him with disbelieving, nervous eyes. He lets his heartbeat slow, his own nervousness forcibly fade. "You said you love me. Prove it. Every day, for the rest of your life – that's what I want, Dean. I want you, here, with me. As yourself." The way things were, even if Castiel has to drag Dean into it.

Dean's throat works, then, "I meant that promise. Whatever you want, Cas. And I won't break it, but Cas, you should. Having me near you, it's sick and wrong and I still want you, in any way you'll let me. And I have this darkness. I don't think I'll ever fall back, but that darkness – I don't think it will ever go away, and that's what scares me." His voice drops to a whisper at the end.

"And it scares me." Castiel closes his eyes and wishes for the images not to come, but they do, relentless. "Because I'm seen it. That's why you have to give up control, Dean. You have to trust me, before I can trust you."

Dean looks haunted, but not resistant. 

They both jolt when there's a scuffing noise above and the sound of voices. Castiel grabs the light and turns it out, and they both go silent.

Castiel knows that they need to keep quiet for hours, even the rest of the day. The farm is close enough to the roadway to be thoroughly searched, and that's something that will take hours. Not to mention, Mr. and Mrs. Kasey (their daughter Kelly had left for college) would be questioned as well. Castiel hopes that goes the way they planned, that the denials of any sighting of Castiel and Dean doesn't come across as a lie. He hopes they're better at lying than he is.

He hears Dean's breathing pick up. Dean is still right next to him, so Castiel reaches out, blindly, finding a shoulder.

There's a puff of air as Dean laughs, but there's no much humor involved. "Kinda reminds me of the coffin."

"Ah. This is not a coffin," Castiel whispers.

"I know that," Dean says so quiet he can barely be heard, "I just wish my body did."

"Lay down and relax," Castiel suggests softly. 

He hears it when Dean moves, shifting around. Dean is so close he's actually touching Castiel, fingers pressed lightly against Castiel's leg, but like the careful times of recently, it's not intrusive, and Castiel feels almost no fear. He guesses that the contact is more for Dean's state of mind than anything else.

After some indeterminable span of time, he copies Dean's movement, lying on his side, the contact breaking. But he can still almost feel Dean.

Castiel had gotten no sleep the night before – it was all spent planning and setting up, both geographically figuring out the problems and setting the tripwire, neither of which he'd ever dealt with before. So he feels the weariness settle now, weighing down his bones. The cellar is cold, as is the dirt floor, but it still feels good to his slowly relaxing muscles. He makes sure to wrap his other wrist securely in Dean's jacket.

He lies down with his folded right arm beneath his head, and closes his eyes, though there's no difference; it's that dark.

Dean's breathing is like a steady beat, constant and never-ending.

Castiel falls asleep to the sound of it.

\------------------

Castiel almost immediately realizes he must have shifted a lot in his sleep. He has a warm, gently moving up and down pillow, and an arm curled around his back. He twitches, feeling uncomfortable, and almost immediately Dean starts pressing circles with the palm of his hand on Castiel's back, right between his shoulder blades. The movement is immediate, and Castiel wonders if he's been shifting around in his sleep, and Dean responding. He opens his eyes, but it remains dark.

Then, quietly, "I used to do this for Sam when he'd have nightmares."

"Hm," is Castiel's reply. _You're good at it_ , he thinks. The repetitive motion is weirdly soothing, and even though he should be afraid, this close to Dean, he's not.

Dean just holds him.

"I'm glad you're back," Castiel whispers.

The hand stops, then resumes. "So am I." He feels Dean turn his head, into Castiel's hair.

Castiel stays there until his body begins to wake up and demand to move. When he shifts to get up, Dean lets go immediately.

"How long has it been?" Castiel asks, searching around for the light.

"I don't know. Hours. If the FBI was here, they're probably gone." Dean's voice is slightly hoarse.

Castiel finds the lamp, turns it on.

Dean is blinking, raising his hand against the light. He looks exhausted, as if he never slept, face wrecked.

"Dean," Castiel says, concerned. He reaches out, he doesn't even know for what, but Dean takes his hand and pushes it down, gently.

"I'm okay," Dean says, looking embarrassed. "Just, uh, thinking. You know that … I'll do anything. I meant it, what I said about giving my life. And obeying, however that goes."

Castiel knows that, but something settles within him hearing it.

"I just … I don’t like how you're bound to me," Dean says, not quite looking at Castiel.

Castiel moves back into a comfortable sitting position before answering. "I always have been. You just never noticed." He leaves his tone calm and unaffected.

"Is that why you didn't leave? Even when I – when I was doing those things to you?" Dean's voice goes so low as to be barely carried by his breath.

"I didn't know how," Castiel admits, shrugging lightly, chest tightening. "I wanted to, but where was there for me to go?" 

"And now? Why the change?"

Castiel frowns. It started with Dean giving himself up, started with Dean's confession, started with the realization that there was something there of the Dean Castiel had fallen for. Years of devotion and pain, and the bitter knowledge that Dean will go on, and on – he knows Dean has no concept of eternity, but Castiel does. So in the end, he says the same thing he did to Burrows. "Everything I have done leads to you and Sam. I can't protect Sam anymore, because he doesn't need my protection. But I can still save you, Dean. I did it once and I believe I can do it again."

"You have a lot of faith … that I won't fall back."

Castiel folds his arms around himself, shuts down a shiver. "Will you?"

"No," Dean whispers.

"Promise me." He commands it, for Dean's sake as much as his own.

"I promise. On Sam's soul, I promise. I won't ever hurt you again. I'll protect you from anything, even myself," and the words tumble out rough but sincere.

Castiel takes the promise with a nod of acknowledgement. It goes without saying that when it comes to Sam, Dean doesn't fail.

Dean leans back, and Castiel watches him, thinking. They'll have to stay here – here being mostly the cellar, with time outside of it for obvious reasons – for at least a week to convince the FBI and police that they've gotten past their net. He doubts it will occur to them that they're being helped by anyone, simply because Dean and Sam's background would make that unlikely. Serial killers don't make friends who don't care they're serial killers. Detective Ballard had dryly made that point. 

This cellar isn't any more uncomfortable than a warehouse, really. Castiel doesn’t mind the wait. It gives him the opportunity to observe Dean, as well. He doesn't know what was going on Dean's mind those days he was in police custody, what made him break from that silent guilt. 

The guilt's still there. The silence, not so much.

"I would've – you didn't say anything, but you kind of got in my space in your sleep," Dean says suddenly, twiddling his thumbs.

Castiel hasn't curled up to Dean before, but then he usually wasn't sleeping when he was that close to Dean, either uncomfortably awake or blacked out. He guesses that some part of him wants the normal physical contact, even if Dean is the only person he can get it from. He could even want it, with the old Dean, the returning Dean, the one who doesn't make his skin crawl. "I thought as much. I don't … blame you."

Dean nods, fingers twitching like it's an involuntary tic. "How long do we stay here?"

"Here, at least a week. After that, we'll probably be able to spend most of our time up above, though the roads out will likely still be watched."

"And then?"

"We should hunt in the west coast, I think."

"Hunt like normal?"

"We'll have to be more careful. No more investigations where the FBI's already there. No more opportunistic stunts." Castiel smiles wryly. Dean's action had been stupid – as defined by the rules as Dean knows them, even – and yet it has led them here, which is not a bad place, entirely.

"Got it," Dean says, muted. 

"We talk everything over first," Castiel adds.

"Very fair," Dean says softly. "Someone else in your place wouldn't be."

"I'm not someone else."

"No," Dean says. "You aren't." 

There's something definitive in his tone, though of what Castiel can't guess.

Dean nods again, as if to himself. He starts examining the shelves and what's in them (mostly cans and bottled water), picks at the dirt on the floor, then stares up at the low ceiling before returning his attention to Castiel.

"You seem different," Dean says abruptly.

"I have faith, I suppose," Castiel says. _I have a purpose_. He glances at his wrist, the dried blood on the bandage – Dean's jacket gone – and thinks of the darkness beyond. Either way it ends for him, he has something for the time he has left. It's not much, but then … it is Dean. Illogical, but he doesn't need the knife, not with that. Not with Dean not yet saved. Dean, here, breathing. It's enough for Castiel, at least in this moment.

Dean snorts. "Faith in what?"

Castiel doesn't go for the first answer that pops in his mind, instead, he smiles sadly. "Look at me, Dean. I'm here. I'm alive. So are you. Heaven and hell didn't break us apart. Isn't that enough?"

Dean looks recalcitrant for a long second, then it fades. "Okay," Dean says quietly. "Okay." 

Castiel knows he hasn't convinced Dean, but that doesn't matter. He has Dean's word; whatever reservations Dean has on Castiel's behalf, he isn't going to run off. Castiel has been following Dean wherever he lead, rudderless, but things have changed. Castiel knows what he is here to do, and he knows how to go about it, and there's a clear goal at the end. He hadn't realized, until now, how much that mattered. How much being alone with no purpose had hurt him. Angels have always served – and together – or fallen to the dark or humanity. Perhaps Castiel is no different in that, always serving someone, being near someone. And Dean, well … is not worthy of being served, not anymore, but this time Castiel is leading, not following.

Castiel still feels acutely aware of Dean, and is sure it goes both ways.

Dean seems to have finally relaxed, and that easing of tension helps Castiel's own fade away. 

There's muffled noise up above. Castiel takes the lamp and turns it off.

"Damn FBI," Dean mutters.

Castiel lets a "Hm," escape. He focuses on the sounds above, which sound vaguely like angry voices. Definitely not Mr. Kasey. 

It's not long before Castiel can hear Dean's breathing quicken again. 

Castiel reaches out blindly, finds Dean's leg, which jumps as soon as he makes contact. Then Castiel shifts next to Dean, until his shoulder presses against Dean's. This is a need Castiel doesn't mind fulfilling, not for the most part. A way to use his own body that doesn't hurt; a way that doesn't make Castiel shiver in revulsion from the form that holds him. It's comforting, and not just to Castiel – such a surprising thing, that bodies are capable of, in equal spades with hurt. Dean is shaking slightly, shivering maybe. 

Castiel just waits.

"Cold," Dean admits finally.

"Yes," he agrees, doubting that's the entirety of it. But Dean has relaxed now, almost slumping into Castiel's touch.

"You're completely nuts, you know that?" 

"Yes," Castiel agrees again. By any standard, he is, by taking Dean again.

"You should be running as far away from me as possible," Dean says, and he says it like he's afraid Castiel will suddenly believe him, and do what he says. "Every rational person would. I hurt you so badly, Cas."

"I know," Castiel says quietly. "And you can't ever make up for that. But you're going to try, aren't you?"

He hears Dean shift restlessly, then Dean raises his arm and brings it around Castiel's shoulders. Castiel accepts it almost without a twitch, recognizing it as the protective gesture it's intended to be, recognizing it as something he can take, and feel comfort from, however illogical it may be. "Thank you," Dean whispers.

Castiel lays his head against Dean's shoulder and, together like that, they wait in the darkness.

\------------------

Mr. Kasey gets them in the morning.

Castiel leads, Dean follows, and they step out into the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: discussion of rape, remembering rape, thoughts of suicide, 'fake' suicide attempt, death of OC's.
> 
> Author's Note (spoilers): I don't condone or recommend staying with an abusive partner. I nearly wrote Castiel leaving Dean, but I thought it truer to Castiel's character for him to stay and try to save Dean.


End file.
